Kangaroo - Georges Louis Leclerc, Comte de Buffon

This originally hand-colored engraving is from Georges Louis Leclerc comte de Buffon's Oeuvres complètes de Buffon. Nouvelle édition annotée et précédée d'une introduction sur Buffon et sur les progrès des sciences naturelles depuis son époque par J.-L. de Lanessan. The work was published in Paris by Libraire Abel Pilon and edited by A. le Vasseur circa the 1820s to 1830s.

Buffon's work became one of the most informative sources as far as the visual appearance of animals, and was highly understandable for a wide audience. Buffon described his work and love for natural history by stating that, "Natural history embraces all the objects the universe presents to us. This prodigious multitude of quadrupeds, birds, fish, insects, plants, minerals, etc., offers to the curiosity of the human mind a vast spectacle, of which the whole is so great that the details are inexhaustible."
 
Size 26.5 X 17.5 cm