Giclee reprint of an original lithograph from Volume V of Philip Franz von Siebold’s Fauna Japonica. It consists of a five-volume series of zoological monographs published serially between 1833 and 1850 that served as the West’s first comprehensive introduction to the wildlife of isolationist Edo-period Japan. The foundational text and vast natural history collections were amassed by German physician and botanist Philipp Franz von Siebold and his assistant Heinrich Bürger during their deployment to the Dutch trading post of Dejima in Nagasaki harbor between 1823 and 1829.

Written in French, the volumes were compiled and scientifically categorized by prominent Dutch naturalists at the Leiden Museum—including Coenraad Jacob Temminck, Hermann Schlegel, and Wilhem de Haan—while the striking, highly accurate lithographic plates were largely based on paintings by talented Japanese artist-naturalists like Kawahara Keiga. This extraordinary cross-cultural collaboration systematically documented the archipelago's unique vertebrates and invertebrates for the very first time in a Western European language, establishing a vital historical bridge between Western science and the long-hidden natural world of Japan.

Despite the label on this plate referencing Steller, modern researchers have determined that this plate actually illustrates the now-extinct Japanese sea lion (Zalophus japonicus). Highly abundant during the 19th century along the beaches of the Japanese archipelago, these sea lions were heavily hunted for their valuable oil, internal organs, and fur skin, which ultimately led to their complete disappearance by the mid-20th century. The elegant lithograph captures the animal's uniform, ash-brown aquatic body contour alongside a meticulous anatomical inset of its eye, exemplifying the synthesis of traditional Japanese artistry and rigid Western scientific documentation that made the Fauna Japonica a masterpiece.