Duria Antiquior

Duria Antiquior, a more ancient Dorset is the first pictorial representation of a scene of prehistoric life based on evidence from fossil reconstructions, a genre now known as paleoart.

De la Beche had the professional artist Georg Scharf produce lithographic prints based on the painting, which he sold to friends to raise money for Anning's benefit.

It was this description that motivated the geologist Henry De la Beche, who had worked with Conybeare describing the marine reptile fossils, to create a pictorial representation of life in ancient Dorset.

[2] Despite her renown in geological circles, in 1830 Anning was having financial difficulties due to hard economic times in Britain, and the long and unpredictable intervals between major fossil finds.

In addition to the vertebrates there were several invertebrates shown including belemnites depicted as squid-like and an ammonite represented as a floating creature along the lines of a paper nautilus.

[2][3][7] In Berlin, Leopold von Buch, presented the lithograph on 4 February 1831 to an audience, praised the then recent developments in British Geology and raised new questions about the processes of geohistorical change.

[10] The Swiss professor of geology Francois Jules Pictet de la Rive had a small version of Duria Antiquior redrawn for inclusion in the last volume of his Elementary Treatise on Paleontology (1844–1846).

[12] In 2007 the Lyme Regis artist Richard Bizley worked with David Ward to produce an updated version of the scene that reflected modern scientific knowledge of the creatures depicted.

[13] In Lyme Regis Museum there is a large three-dimensional diorama based on Duria Antiquior, created by artist Darrell Wakelam in partnership with local children.