When the world's first colour catalogue of fish was published in 1719, just 100 copies were made. "That makes it one of the rarest natural history books on Earth," says Ted Pietsche, a professor of marine science at the University of Washington, Seattle.



The lurid paintings in Fishes, Crayfishes, and Crabs were painted by Samuel Fallours, a soldier-turned-clergyman's assistant living on the Indonesian island of Ambon. At the time, Ambon was the seat of the Dutch East India Company.



"Local fishermen would deliver freshly caught fish direct to Fallours, who would paint them and sell the images to wealthy Company officials and European collectors with an eye for the bizarre," says Pietsche.



(Image: Samuel Fallour/Taschen)

When confronted with Fallours' paintings, many Europeans were sceptical. "They were so brightly coloured compared to the dull, drab fish found in European waters that few readers were prepared to believe in their existence," says Pietsche.



They were right to be sceptical. "Fallours applied colour, more often than not, in a totally arbitrary fashion," says Pietsche. For example, he deceptively painted this false stonefish (37), which is normally drab in colour, in vivid reds, yellows and blues.



He also adorned the flanks of fish and crabs with suns, moons, stars and small pots of flowering plants. He even painted three tiny black heads wearing reds hats onto a wrasse (38).



Fallours and his assistants probably became bored of copying the paintings in the same colours, "eventually deciding that any available colour would do as long as it was nice and bright and helped achieve a satisfactory whole", writes Pietsche.



(Image: Samuel Fallours/Taschen) Advertisement

Fallours also made up bizarre claims about the fish he painted. For example, he claimed to have caught a four-legged anglerfish ( 49) on a beach. "I kept it alive for three days in my house; it followed me everywhere with great familiarity, much like a little dog," Fallours wrote.



The anglerfish has long preoccupied ichthyologists: in the early 1500s, Georges Rondelet invented a new technique to display them. He removed the fish's stomach through its mouth and then stretched its outer skin until it became transparent. He then placed a candle inside the body cavity, producing a form of lantern. "This trick seems to have been common back in Rondelet's time, perhaps as common as jack-o-lanterns being made from pumpkins today," says Pietsch.



(Image: Samuel Fallours/Taschen)

He even claimed to have encountered a mermaid. He scribbled a description of the meeting on the painting itself:



"I had this Syrene alive for four days in my house at Ambon in a tub of water. My son brought it to me from Bouro where he purchased it from the blacks for two ells of cloth. It died of hunger, not wishing to take any nourishment, neither fishes nor shellfishes, nor mosses or grasses. It did nothing but whimper with little cries [that sounded] somewhat like rats. I had the curiosity to lift its fins in front and in back and [found] it was shaped like a woman."



Fallours clearly didn't meet any mermaids, so what was he playing at? "Fallours probably invented some of the extraordinary beasts he painted and bizarre stories to go with them in order to attract buyers and patrons," says Pietsche.



(Image: Samuel Fallours/Taschen)