Plates by A. Schouman, G. van den Heuvel, P.C. Haag, G. Haasbroek, C. van Kuik, and Van Noorden; engraved by S. Fokke, C. Bogerts, and Du Boulois (5 plates unsigned).

Aernout Vosmaer (1720-1799) was a Dutch naturalist and collection curator. In 1756 he became the director of a natural history collection started by Princess Anna, the wife of William IV, Prince of Orange and continued by their son William V. Vosmaer held the post until the Batavian Revolution in 1795. Regnum animale is in Latin the realm of the animals (Het dierenrijk). Vosmaer’s private collection became the basis of the Stadholder Willem V’s (1748-1806) cabinet and menagerie. Vosmaer (1720-1799) devoted a lot of time to systematically organizing and describing the Stadholderly cabinet which was situated in The Hague. The menagerie of living animals was kept at the country house “Het kleine Loo”. From 1766 onward, Vosmaer started publishing detailed and illustrated descriptions of some of the exotic animals that were kept in the cabinet and the menagerie. Between 1766 and 1787 he published thirty-one such descriptions, and in 1804 two more pieces appeared posthumously. The 33 descriptions were then republished in one volume in the same year, under the title Regnum Animale. In 1766 Vosmaer described a springbok, which he calle “pronk-bokje” literally flaunting goat. In July 1774 the Stadholder received two living springboks sent to him by Cape commander, Mr. Gordon. One of them, the female, died soon but the other lived for a long time.

[NL] Arnout Vosmaer was een natuuronderzoeker, dierkundige en conservator van het menagerie (dierenverzameling) van Stadhouder Willem V van Oranje.