Giclee reprint of an original lithograph from Jules Sebastian Cesar Dumont D'Urville’s, Voyage au pole sud et dans l'Océanie sur les corvettes l'Astrolabe et la Zélée. This multi-volume scientific chronicle published by Gide in Paris between 1841 and 1854 documents one of France's final historic maritime expeditions. Commissioned by King Louis-Philippe and spanning from 1837 to 1840, the voyage challenged British and American polar dominance by successfully charting the Antarctic mainland, which Dumont d’Urville famously named Adélie Land after his wife. Beyond its geographical triumphs, the mission served as an immense victory for natural history, deploying a specialized team of scientists and artists who gathered thousands of unfamiliar specimens across the Pacific and Southeast Asia. These biological findings were systematically compiled into extensive text volumes and a stunning Mammifères atlas starting in 1841, providing 19th-century Europe with its first highly authoritative, anatomically precise illustrations of remote global wildlife.

Painted by the distinguished natural history artist Jean-Charles Werner and engraved on a steel plate by Vte. Adam, this plate contrasts two distinct dolphin species encountered during the French voyage through remote global waters. The top figure, labeled historically as the "Dauphin à museau court" (Short-muzzle dolphin), captures the streamlined hydrodynamic frame of the short-beaked common dolphin (Delphinus delphis), a species highly celebrated for its extreme swimming speeds and wide geographic distribution across temperate and tropical oceans.

Positioned immediately below it is the "Dauphin à ventre rose" (Pink-bellied dolphin), a historical classification for the spinner dolphin (Stenella longirostris), specifically referencing the unique geographic population (Stenella longirostris roseiventris) known for developing a distinct, localized rosy coloration across its underside.

By combining these side-by-side profile portraits with technical, geometric skeletal inserts of a generic dolphin's fluke structure and jaw profile, the print provided European scientists with an empirical morphological baseline that helped safely dismantle ancient maritime legends in favor of comparative anatomy.