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Engraved frontispiece + 24, [2], 20 pp. + 63 plates; engraved frontispiece + 20, [2], 17, [1 blank] pp. + 64 plates.Rare complete first edition, in the original German with a French translation, of a classic of zoological illustration, with 127 large plates showing wild and domestic quadrupeds (a few including two or more animals, sometimes from different species), by the south German painter, engraver, draughtsman and publisher Johann Elias Ridinger (1698-1767), born in Ulm and educated and working in Augsburg. His beautiful and by turns charming, grotesque or amusing animal plates in the present series are finely engraved and intended for colouring. The plates show the animals in characteristic poses, sometimes in motion, in (mostly natural) landscapes. A few show animals in captivity or otherwise reveal interactions between humans and animals. Among all Ridinger's works the plates of the present series are the most sought-after and are considered his finest work. Thienemann (1856) called the book "vollständig wohl nirgends mehr zu finden" and was unable to see 3 plates and Schwerdt (1928) knew only two complete copies: his own and that of Baron Rudolf Ritter von Gutmann (1880-1966) described by Schwarz (1910), with the 18th-century bookplate of Henricus Le Couvreur. There appears to be a complete copy at the Austrian National Library in Vienna.Ridinger set up his own art publishing house in 1723 and later brought his sons Martin Elias (1730-1780) and Johann Jakob (1736-1784) into the firm. Ridinger died in 1767 with the book still unfinished, but his sons continued the firm, completed the book, signed its texts and no doubt published it themselves. From the renowned hunting collection of Marcel Jeanson (1885-1942), with his bookplate and the manuscript item number 1622. With occasional minor foxing in the frontispieces and text leaves, but still in very good condition, most of the plates fine. The spine shows minor wear and the paper sides are scuffed, but the binding is still in good condition.l Jeanson 1622 (the present copy); Nissen, ZBI 3408; Schwerdt III, pp. 145-146; Thiébaud, col. 785 (citing Brunet); Thienemann, Johann Elias Ridinger 974-1102 (pp. 197-232, perversely numbering the plates 1-62, 69-133); Schwarz, Katalog einer Ridinger-Sammlung, I, pp. 125-140 (Gutmann copy); St. Morét, "Wer hat das Thierreich so in seines Pinsels Macht?", in: Die Tierdarstellungen von Johann I Elias Ridinger (exhib. cat. Museum Jagdschloß Kranichstein, Darmstadt) (1999).