This PhD project focuses on the depiction of aquatic life in the context of two natural history collections. In order to shed light on the emergence of ichthyology as an independent discipline at the turn of the 19th century, the spotlight will be put on the collection of the Linck family, who were apothecaries from Leipzig, and the collection of the physician Marcus Élieser Bloch (1723–1799) from Berlin. Rather than the collectors themselves, however, the study focuses on their 'objects of knowledge': natural history publications, drawings, prints and animal specimens. For the first time, these various forms of (re-)presentation and their differing visual strategies will be presented and contrasted through object-based analyses. This will reveal the complex, reciprocal interplay between medialisation and the indispensable role of images and specimens in connecting art and science. In addition to making a significant contribution to art history, the findings on fish far from the sea can also be linked to current discourses in visual studies, human-animal studies, and the history of science.
