Giclee reprint of an original lithograph from the Zoological Atlas accompanying the reports of the Voyage autour du Monde sur la Corvette de Sa Majeste La Coquille.

Published sequentially in Paris between 1826 and 1830 by Arthus Bertrand, this landmark work is universally celebrated as one of the rarest, most complete, and visually magnificent records of Pacific biodiversity ever produced.

Commanded by naval captain Louis Isidore Duperrey, the corvette La Coquille was commissioned by King Louis XVIII on a purely scientific circumnavigation. Its specific goal was to explore the remote island systems of the Pacific Ocean, parts of New Guinea, and the South American coast that had been bypassed by earlier navigator. The immense task of surveying the fauna fell to the ship’s assistant medical surgeon, René Primevère Lesson, alongside his colleague Prosper Garnot. Following French naval tradition, medical officers doubled as the onboard naturalists. Lesson, in particular, proved to be an exceptionally gifted zoologist.

The Black-spotted Cusucs, Spilocuscus rufoniger, is one of the largest arboreal marsupial species on Earth, surpassed in size within its biological family only by the Celebes bear cuscus. They are native exclusively to the primary tropical rainforests of northern New Guinea and surrounding Indonesian island chains. Tragically, due to severe logging, agricultural deforestation, and heavy subsistence hunting, the species has vanished from massive portions of its historical territory, and the IUCN lists them as critically endangered.