PBA Galleries

3 volumes. iv, 333, iv, 3-319; [4], 17-392 pp. With 100 hand-colored lithographed plates, most after paintings by Charles King. (4to) 26.2x16.7 cm (10½x6½"), period half morocco & cloth, expertly rebacked with original gilt-lettered spine strips employed, mottled endpapers.

Magnificent series of hand-colored portraits of the Indians of North America, the 1836-38-44 folio first edition of which was described by Field as "one of the most costly and important ever published on the American Indians. The plates are accurate portraits of celebrated chiefs, or of characteristic individuals of the race, and are colored with care, to faithfully represent their features and costumes." Howes notes the plates as "mostly the work of King," and declares that they are "the most colorful portraits of Indians ever executed... The original oil paintings of which the plates were copies were all destroyed in the 1865 Smithsonian fire." This 1870 edition calls for only 100 plates, rather than the 120 (or 121) of earlier editions. There are a few discrepancies from the list of plates, but it is complete with 100 plates. Many of the striking plates are heightened with gum arabic. Name of C.H. Steffans stamped in gilt at the bottoms of the spines.

Provenance: Holmes 6/73

References: Howes M129