Marine life has drawn illustrators and printmakers for centuries, long before photography made the ocean's interior visible. Natural history publishers of the 17th and 18th centuries commissioned meticulous engravings of fish, shells, and sea creatures from specimen drawings, treating scientific accuracy as a form of artistry. That tradition carried forward into 20th-century travel and conservation imagery, where the sea became shorthand for escape and wonder. The period originals in this collection span that full arc.