Descripción
THE GOLDEN SET, COLORED, WITH THE PUBLISHER'S WRAPPERS. Four volumes (two text, two plates). Coblenz: J. Hoelscher; 1839-41. Text-volumes: quarto (12 7/16" x 10 1/16", 316mm x 256mm). Vignettes: oblong folio (17" x 22 ¼", 431mm x 563mm). Tableaux: oblong folio (18 1/16" x 24 3/8", 459mm x 619mm). [Full collation available.] With 81 hand-colored aquatint-engraved plates, a lithographed chart and a lithographed map, hand-colored in outline. Bound in modern half black morocco gilt over blue paste-paper. On the text volumes' spine, author, title and number gilt within scrollwork. Top edges of the text-block gilt, fore and lower edges untrimmed. On the two plate volumes, author and title gilt to black morocco on the front boards. On the spines, 7 pairs of gilt fillets. [Full condition report available.] Very good, with scattered faults. Alexander Philipp Maximilian of Wied-Neuwied (1782-1867) was a protégé of Alexander von Humboldt, the all-encompassing man of Enlightenment science, who passed on to the young princeling his own passion for exploration. Indeed, Humboldt's travels through the Americas 1799-1804 sparked Prince Maximilian -- born the grandson of the ruling prince, and his father's fifth son; i.e., with no chance of ruling -- to do the same. Self-funded, Maximilian set off for Brazil 1815-1817, that trip being published from 1820 through 1850. Encouraged by his success, Maximilian made a second trip to America -- this through North America, getting as far west as Ft. McKenzie in Montana -- from 1832 to 1834, and now accompanied by the Swiss painter Karl Bodmer (1809-1893). The combination of the Humboldt-trained prince and the superbly sensitive artist Bodmer produced the best account of the American West, free from jingoism and agenda. Production of the work was lengthy, costly and complex (the Joslyn Art Museum's Karl Bodmer's North American Prints, edited by Brandon K. Ruud, is indispensable for its analysis). The question of coloration is vexatious to collectors, but Ruud corrects the "misinformation" that only the 46 subscribers' sets were fully colored; he estimates in fact that between 100 and 200 sets were colored in the XIXc either by Hölscher or the English (Ackermann) or French (Bertrand) publishers. Earlier cataloguers of the present item have called it "a later compiled set with resulting variance to margins, blind stamps and paper stock." The question of margins (generally about a centimeter along the long edge) is begged by the exceptional size of our set's plates; our set's Vignettes are some 5 ½" taller and wider than the Bobins set's. As with so many XIXc plate-books issued in parts, there was some natural variation in the size of the finished sheets; most were likely trimmed down to a uniform size, but the present set -- especially the large Vignettes -- seems not to have been. The variance in blind stamps is slight; 91% have the C. Bodmer control stamp, 5% have the earlier Ch. Bodmer stamp and only 3 (4%) are unstamped. I cannot detect variation in the paper stock (although some have tanned and others have not). Thanks to Ruud 2004, one can now make definitive study of the states of the plates (a spreadsheet is available). In the present set, 69 (85%) of the plates are in state 1, 11 are in state 2 (Tableaux 1, 18, 22, 42 and 46; Vignettes 1, 2, 4, 10, 12 and 18) and 1 in state 3 (Tableau 17). Crucially, none of the plates has the date, which is the hallmark of a later set. The set was purchased at the Sotheby's New York sale of John Golden (22 November 2022, lot 48), "Book Illustration in the Age of Scientific Discovery." Completely colored sets receive Howes's highest scarcity rating: dd ("superlatively rare books, almost unobtainable"). Abbey 615; Howes M 443a; Sabin 47014; Wagner-Camp 76:1. Ruud, Brandon K. (ed.). Karl Bodmer's North American Prints. Omaha, Lincoln and London: University of Nebraska Press for the Joslyn Art Museum, 2004. N° de ref. del artículo JLR0577
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