Roesel von Rosenhof: frogman
Walking along Cromwell Road in London last month, I popped into the Natural History Museum. When I re-emerged I was carrying a postcard called "Frog" by Roesel von Rosenhof (1705-1759). It is one of the most beautiful depictions of the amphibian that is the Rainy Day icon. But who was Roesel von Rosenhof?
August Johan Roesel was born in Augustenburg in Germany on 30 March 1705. Following the early death of his father, his godmother, the reigning princess of Arnstadt-Schwarzburg, took over his education. She encouraged his artistic ability and had him apprenticed to his uncle, Wilhem Roesel von Rosenhof, a well known painter. In 1726, Rosel went to the Danish court in Copenhagen to paint portraits. His work was so well received that he was asked to settle there but he returned to Germany in 1728. During his trip home, a fever forced him to stay in Hamburg, where an acquaintance brought him a copy of Maria Sybilla Merian's book, Metamorphosis insectorum surinamensium (1705). The work inspired Roesel to do a similar study of German species.
After years of study, the first part of Roesel's Der monatlich-herausgegebenen Insecten-Belustigung was published (1740). The book was praised for its outstanding illustrations and for the systematic way Roesel defined insects. Today he is considered the Father of German Entology. In 1753, the same year he added von Rosenhof to his name, the first part of his Historia Naturalis Ranarum Nostratium/Die nat?e Histoire der Fr?e hiesigen Landes was published. The text of this book is in parallel columns of Latin and German and the frog illustrations have long been considered the best ever produced.
Roesel von Rosenhof had begun a companion volume on lizards and salamanders, but a stroke paralyzed his left side and he died on 27 March 1759.
And our fascination with frogs? As we wrote in our Explainer: "A final reason for calling this blog Rainy Day is to draw attention to frogs. They are keenly aware of rain's life-giving properties and they are sufficiently self confident to avoid today's mania for visiting arid places. It cannot be a coincidence then that frogs belong to the family 'Ranidae'."
