2018, ISBN: 152e1b568aa34baf8dd07321a8fd0cf8

OVER 1100 PAGES OF MANUSCRIPT CONSTRUCTION RECORDS AND ACCOUNTS IN THIRTEEN FOLIO VOLUMES OF AN IMPORTANT FREDERICK, MARYLAND, 18th/19th CENTURY IRISH IMMIGRANT ARCHITECT AND MASTER BUILD… More...

OVER 1100 PAGES OF MANUSCRIPT CONSTRUCTION RECORDS AND ACCOUNTS IN THIRTEEN FOLIO VOLUMES OF AN IMPORTANT FREDERICK, MARYLAND, 18th/19th CENTURY IRISH IMMIGRANT ARCHITECT AND MASTER BUILDER, INCLUDING THOSE OF HIS SONS, WHO WERE HIS BUSINESS PARTNERS AND SUCCESSORS, KEPT OVER A PERIOD OF FIFTY YEARS, 1790-18401. McCLEERY, Henry (1749-1819), Irish-American architect and master builder in Frederick, Maryland, who built most of Frederick's significant structures in the late 18th and early 19th centuries. Tall folio ledger book, original flexible boards (worn & soiled), signed on front cover: "Henry McCleery/ his Book/ 1790 January 1st," then again, "Henry McCleery His Book," with dates "1790/1791/1792/1793," and "Alegheny Lotts in this Book 1790 page 20"; over 320 pages of manuscript in 4 sections, crudely side-sewn and bound as one, ca. pp. [76] + [76] + [80] + [90], each section with alphabetical list of clients/customers + 12 simple original sketch plans of buildings with dimensions, written on laid paper with ProPatria watermark. Frederick, Maryland, this volume, 1790, 1791, 1792, 1793, [1796, 1814-1815, 1821]: Additional volumes describedbelow covering the years 1794, 1800, 1810, 1811, 1821-30, 1830, 1831, 1834-40, 1836, 1840. Thirteen volumes of bound manuscript, tall folios, approximately 1100 pp. Condition is generally used, as would be expected, but very good, as described for each volume. An extraordinary collection of manuscript account books delineating an early American architectural and construction business conducted by Henry McCleery, an Irish immigrant architect and master carpenter, who settled in Frederick, Maryland, about 1776, with the business carried on after his death in 1819 by his three sons, Robert, Andrew and William, then by only two of them after William went to Brookville, Indiana, in 1825. Henry McCleery's will was proved in 1820, leaving everything to his three sons equally. American manuscript architectural and building records such as these can be described by the old saying, "Rare as hen's teeth!" After searching the holdings of many American institutions, and the Library of Congress list of architectural manuscript sources, we have found no comparable American records, nor anything remotely as early, or detailed. To give an idea of the rarity of such manuscripts, the online Winterthur catalogue records but one (1), a 122 page account book of Peter Ranck (1770-1851), joiner, cabinetmaker and innkeeper, but, not an architect/builder, from Jonestown, Lebanon County, Pennsylania, 1794-1817. Frederick, the second largest town in Maryland, was a prominent and prosperous inland market town, with a large German population. The town was surrounded by rich agricultural lands and large amounts of iron ore to feed numerous furnaces and forges. We quote from Thematic Context HistoryArchitecture, at www.cityoffrederickmd.gov: "Frederick thus became attractive to investors, planters, farmers, entrepreneurs and gentlemen. As a result it was also attractive to craftsmen and laborers. This combined population built houses, shops, churches, taverns, industrial buildings, banks and offices. Shortly after its establishment, Frederick became the county seat for the newly formed Frederick County in 1748. Thus the town also sprouted a courthouse, jail and law offices. Of course it had a market house as wellThere are a number of avenues for further research into Frederick's architectural heritage. The list begun in this context statement of architects and master builders [beginning with Andrew McCleery in the 1810-1860 timeframe] who practiced in Frederick can be expanded with biographical information about these individuals and a complete list of properties they built." The manuscripts on offer here have enormous research value, containing, as they do, a copious amount of first hand information about the architectural and building history of Frederick spanning fifty years, 1790-1840."Henry McCleery worked as a master carpenter and architect, and he built most of the significant structures in Frederick from the time of his arrival to his death in 1819, assisted by his sons Andrew and Robert McCleeryBuildings attributed to McCleery include Frederick County's second courthouse (1785) [designed reportedly using the Court of Assizes in Dublin as a model; it burned down in 1861], the second All Saint's Episcopal Church (1813), for the Frederick Presbyterian Church (1825), and numerous taverns and houses."-Maryland Historical Trust: Maryland Inventory of Historic Properties (note to the Perry Beall McCleery House, Inventory No. FHD-4650). There are four pages detailing work accomplished in 1821 for the Committee of the Protestant Episcopal Church. Designed by Henry McCleery, this second All Saints' Episcopal Church was consecrated in 1814, on land purchased on North Court Street, near Court House Square. This historic church is the seat of All Saints Parish, Diocese of Maryland, which covers most of Frederick County, Maryland, and once covered most of Western Maryland. Those pages are pale, but are eminently legible. Henry McCleery's manuscripts, with voluminous additions by his sons after his death, provide a wealth of previously unknown information about the flourishing business conducted by these architect/master builders, all regarding properties and businesses they served in Frederick County, as well as some in Georgetown. The initial accounts/records are carried over from a previous "folio," whereabouts, if extant, unknown to us. These thirteen volumes containing more than 1100 pages offer an extraordinary amount of descriptive accounting information about the business activities of McCleery and his sons, with names of their many customers, with all jobs priced and described as completed for some of the most distinguished personages of late 18th and early 19th century Frederick, the county seat for western Maryland, an important market town, and the seat of justice. Maryland being a slave state, there is much here mentioning named Negro labor, whether slave or free, we don't know, although we do know that the slave population in Frederick was substantial..Building, contracting, carpentry work of all types with different wood such as poplar, ash, chestnut, etc., building houses, making doors, paneled doors, windows, sashes, chimneys, bricks, flooring, joists, shutters, nails, stock locks, boards, scantling, rafters, gutters, etc., etc., also custom furniture making, copious numbers of coffins made to order for children and adults, with some of the more expensive versions described with details of wood, polish, fittings; some for the poor, McCleery apparently having an ongoing contract to provide coffins for those who died in the Poor House, including Negroes. Included are many renovations, building of complete structures, the buying and selling of various types of lumber and wooden building materials. Accomplished jobs are given full treatment, with names, dates, work accomplished, giving exact accountings of materials used for each task, with prices charged. All four sections begin with a hand-lettered alphabetical index of clients names, be they personal, commercial, or county or state entities. The personal names are sometimes identified with a trade, i.e.: printer, locksmith, "comedian", blacksmith, baker, schoolmaster, butcher, mason, tailor, turner, etc., and some with military titles. Businesses or institutions include the Market House, or Frederick Town Market, of which McCleery seems to have had an official position, mentioning he collected "one Years rent of Room over Market", and "rent of stalls & shambles", signed "Henry McCleery Clerk"; "Christian Dwellings"; the State of Maryland, "federal", the County of Frederick; the Magazine; Court House [built in March 1787; those who would speak there would include John Hanson, Thomas Johnson, Francis Scott Key and Roger Brooke Taney, who appears in these records]; the Poor House [built in 1820, and listed on the National Register of Historic Places]; Lutheran Church, etc. The initial 52 pages of the first section (1790) have been re-purposed with a child's pen-trials, school writings, notes, scribbles, math sums and writing-over the previous ledger information, most of which is still legible; thankfully the young scholar used blank areas of this section for his or her efforts [probably a young McCleery]. There are about a dozen pinned-in, laid-in, or loose pages of business and personal writings, including materials lists, costs; drawings, plans of buildings and calculation notes. Work for Frederick County included building steps for the Record Room, making doors, benches and tables, a "Pilory (sic) of Locust with Band," and ladder; hanging and leading windows. McCleery also notes his service as a Juror for 5 days, as well as valuing and "laying off", i.e. surveying, properties. Work for Frederick County in 1791 included such things as "new timbers & covering for the South Bridge in Frederick Town" as well as construction details for the Poor House, ongoing through the years with intermediary David Leavy (or Levy) who often appears in the records as a customer, and whose house (or tavern) McCleery designed and built. Another notable project was work done on the Market House for butchers, and for various other identified business stalls and their amenities.Occasional bartering is evident, such as using Col. Johnson's "negro" for a project for money and labor trade; to the butcher for a "clock case wild cherry wood to pay on the halph [sic] in cash in 2 weeks and the remainder in truff and tallow"; and exchanging carpentry work for blacksmithing or masonry. McCleery makes mention of "My own house on 2d Street 48 perches in sellarBy 39,000 Brick laying", and the Baptist Meeting House. "The Frederick County decisional elite in the second party era,numbered seventy-two menFrederick County's decisional leaders represented the diversity of the community in contrast to the relative uniformity found in the other rural areas"-Whitman H. Ridgway, Community Leadership in Maryland, 1790-1840: A Comparative Analysis of Power in Society (2018). Ridgway goes on to mention men who appear in these McCleery records; Roderick Dorsey, Colonel John McPherson, who married into the family of former Governor Thomas Johnson, Dr. Thomas W. Johnson, Richard Potts, Jr., William M. Beall, Jr., etc. McCleery's accounts cover his work for just over 100 different named clients in the first volume, and many more in the later volumes, many of whom have multiple entries during the years covered. There are a great many prominent names listed, including a number of patriots who participated in the Revoutionary War, and, or, were important politicians, lawyers, judges, prominent members of the Federick County community, or trades people: They include: John Adlum, one of several Frederick patriots of the same family with the same name; Col. Baker Johnson (1747-1811), lawyer and Revolutionary War battalion commander who fought at the 1777 Battle of Paoli in the brigade of his brother, Col. James Johnson. He eventually ran Catoctin Furnace in the early 1800's from his manor house named Auburn, which still stands: several long entries, one for August 12th to September, a full-page for work on 4 floors, fully described; the entry for January 6, 1791 is a full-page accounting of work for Baker Johnson, and another August 12th 1791, and more, including a "coffin for your child hing'd and polished shambles"; [Charles] McGragh [i.e. McGrath], "Comedian." McGrath, "the American Tate Wilkinson of that epoch" pirated the comedy The Contrast,the first play by an American to be professionally staged, and played it at Elizabeth-Town (Hagerstown) as early as April 13, 1791, after it had played Frederick, Georgetown, Alexandria, etc. The entry for August 10, 1791, shows McGrath was in Frederick, and paid for "170 feet of boards.1000 12 penny nailsto doing the Seattes150 Spridgs (springs) for making Doors." This leads us to believe it is possible McGrath was outfitting the semblance of an unkown theatre in Frederick, and not having work done on a dwelling; Col. William Deakins, a Georgetown merchant in the tobacco trade; Col. Thomas Deakins, Revolutionary War officer, surveyor of the Maryland-West Virginia "Deakins" boundary line; John Graham (d. 1833), president of the Frederick County Savings Bank; Catherine Kimball, (1745-1831), many entries for this tavern owner of "the highest-caliber establishment of its kind in Frederick CountyIn 1791 George Washington visited a dance at Kimball's InnAccording to Frederick legendBarbara Hauer (Fritchie) served Washington at Kimball's that night"; Rev. Stephen B[loomer] Balch (1747-1833), Presbyterian minister and educator in Georgetown who graduated from Princeton and served in the Revolutionary War. He founded the second church in Georgetown, the Georgetown Presbyterian Church, often traveled the 40 miles to preach in Frederick where he founded the English Presbyterian Church; Richard Potts (1753-1808), whose house is now part of an architectural walking tour of Frederick, was a politician, U. S. Attorney for Maryland appointed by George Washington, jurist, military aide to the governor of Maryland, Thomas Johnson, with the Maryland line at Valley Forge in 1777, U. S. Representative, U. S. Senator. "one of the most distinguished citizens of Maryland during the Revolutionary period."-Williams & McKinsey, History of Frederick County, Maryland (1910); Frederick County (bridge work & more); John Winter, printer in Frederick 1791-1800, has three entries, the last for "a Wallnut coffin rais'd lid for a Child"; John McPherson (abt. 1760-1829), extensive amount of work for McPherson, a large land owner and colonel in the Revolutionary War; Joshua Dorsey (1752-1814), lawyer, sat at one time in the Maryland House of Delegates: 4 1/2 pp. of specs giving a complete description of his new 33 x 35 foot house, three floors and roof; a number of lengthy entries for David Levy [also spelled Leavy by McCleery] (1741-1804), Revolutionary soldier, tavern owner on Patrick Street. With extensive construction account & rough sketches of plans for him, October, 1792 (with Scott, see below); George Murdock, trustee of Frederick College; Thomas Johnson (1732-1819), prominent Frederick judge, politician, first non-colonial governor of Maryland, delegate to Continental Congress, Associate Justice of the United States Supreme Court;a number of entries for Isaac Mantz (1759-1826), commissioner of roads; William M[urdock] Beall (1742-1823), Frederick judge, landowner, slave holder; John Ross Key (1754-1821), general officer in the Continental Army, lawyer, judge, father of Francis Scott Key; Abner Ritchie, 1790-1840, 0, London: C. & J. Adlard for George Catlin, Egyptian Hall, 1844. Folio. (23 x 16 1/2 inches). [Pp.1-2] letterpress title (verso blank); [pp.3-4] To the Reader; pp.[5-]20 text. 25 hand-coloured lithographic plates, on thick paper, after Catlin, drawn on stone by Catlin (2) or McGahey (23), printed by Day & Haghe. Publisher's half brown morocco and brown cloth boards, upper cover lettered in gilt, pale green endpapers First edition, hand-colored issue, of Catlin's Portfolio, a key work for any serious collection of Western Americana. Catlin published the first two issues of the North American Indian Portfolio simultaneously in late November 1844. The first issue was hand-coloured, and the second had tinted plates. Catlin originally envisaged publishing a series of linked but separate portfolios, each with its own theme: religious rites, dances, costumes, etc. Unfortunately, the first series was the only one that was ever published, and its production proved to be so taxing (both financially and physically) that Catlin sold both the publication and distribution rights to Henry Bohn. Catlin's North American Indian Portfolio contains the results of his years of painting, living with and travelling amongst the Great Plains Indians. Catlin summarized the Native American as "an honest, hospitable, faithful, brave, warlike, cruel, revengeful, relentless, -- yet honourable, contemplative and religious being." In a famous passage from the preface of his North American Indian Portfolio, Catlin describes how the sight of several tribal chiefs in Philadelphia led to his resolution to record their way of life: "the history and customs of such a people, preserved by pictorial illustrations, are themes worthy of the lifetime of one man, and nothing short of the loss of my life shall prevent me from visiting their country and becoming their historian." He saw no future for either their way of life or their very existence, and with these thoughts always at the back of his mind he worked, against time, setting himself a truly punishing schedule, to record what he saw. From 1832 to 1837 he spent the summer months sketching the tribes and then finished his pictures in oils during the winter. The record he left is unique, both in its breadth and also in the sympathetic understanding that his images constantly demonstrate. A selection of the greatest of images from this record were published in the North American Indian Portfolio in an effort to reach as wide an audience as possible. In addition to publishing the present work, Catlin also spent from 1837 to 1852 touring the United States, England, France and Holland with his collection of paintings, examples of Indian crafts and accompanied by representative members of the Indian tribes. A highly important record of a "truly lofty and noble race ... A numerous nation of human beings...three-fourths of whose country has fallen into the possession of civilized man ... twelve million of whose bodies have fattened the soil in the mean time; who have fallen victims to whiskey, the small-pox, and the bayonet" (Catlin). Abbey Travel 653; Field 258; Howes C-243; McCracken 10; Sabin 11532; Wagner-Camp 105a:1; William S. Reese, The Production of Catlin's North American Indian Portfolio, 1844-1876., C. & J. Adlard for George Catlin, Egyptian Hall, 1844, 0<

1845, ISBN: 152e1b568aa34baf8dd07321a8fd0cf8

London: Geo. Catlin, Egyptian Hall [but Henry Bohn] (C. & J. Adlard, printers of text), 1844 [or 1845]. Folio (23 4/8 x 18 4/8 inches). Letterpress title-page and 9 leaves of text, lo… More...

London: Geo. Catlin, Egyptian Hall [but Henry Bohn] (C. & J. Adlard, printers of text), 1844 [or 1845]. Folio (23 4/8 x 18 4/8 inches). Letterpress title-page and 9 leaves of text, loose as issued (a bit thumbed, short marginal tears, one or two of which have been repaired). 25 handcolored lithographed plates after Catlin by Catlin and McGahey lithographed by Day and Haghe, plates printed before letters, heightened with gum arabic and mounted on card within ink-ruled frames loose as issued (plate one with a small stain, some plates with minor spotting, one or two mounts with small surface tears). Preserved in modern maroon morocco backed portfolio. Provenance: from the library of Gerald F. Fitzgerald, with his bookplate on the inside front cover of the portfolio, his sale, Sotheby's London, June 11, 2013, lot 59 First edition, third (first Bohn) issue, the first issue with the plates hand-coloured and mounted on card. George Catlin was the first artist to travel widely among the Plains Indians of North America and create an important body of paintings and graphics to illustrate their customs and artifacts. His purpose was both unselfish and romantic. He wanted, and labored unceasingly, to persuade his contemporaries that Native American culture should be honored and preserved. During the 1830's, Catlin gathered artifacts and turned his sketches and recollections of the prairie into paintings. In 1827, George Catlin, an illustrator from Philadelphia, became the first artist to attempt the perilous journey up the Missouri River, and the first to create visual records of his experiences traveling among the Plains Indians of North America. The artist himself best expressed his goal in the preface to the first edition of his North American Indian Portfolio: "The history and customs of such a people, preserved by pictorial illustrations, are themes worthy the lifetime of one man, and nothing short of the loss of my life shall prevent me from visiting their country and becoming their historian." Over the next eight years, Catlin would travel extensively throughout the Western Plains of America doing just that, and accumulating his "Indian Gallery", which consisted of hundreds of oil paintings he executed presenting the appearances and customs of the 48 different tribes of Native Americans he encountered during his journey. Catlin began to display his Indian Gallery in 1837, touring it in the United States for the next two years before taking the show to London. Having established a name for himself with the success of the Indian Gallery, Catlin turned his attention to finishing his first book, "he Manners, Customs, and Condition of the North American Indians…" which first appeared in the fall of 1841. This book was to become one of the most important works on American Indians published in the 19th century. Not only is Catlin's work a wonderful description of his extensive travels and his career as an artist painting scenes of Indian life in the Midwest, but the book also contains hundreds of his illustrations that portray many aspects of Indian life: Their costumes, ceremonies, dwellings, villages, buffalo hunts, games, etc. Three significant maps showing Indian tribe locations of the period around 1840 further augment the illustrative plates. Catlin's project filled a great need. After Lewis & Clark's celebrated expedition up the Missouri River into the Pacific Northwest, Europeans read avidly of the sights and experiences of the voyage. They traced the route followed by the explorers, using the map that accompanied the wildly popular printed volumes on the journey. But a crucial aspect was missing from the accounts of the expedition of Lewis and Clark. Without pictorial documentation, Europeans (and Americans) were unable to visualize the unbelievable journey. This lack meant that the people, landscape, and customs of the vast American frontier remained abstract ideas-and much less vividly imaginable-to anyone who had not personally experienced the voyage. When Catlin first issued his volume in 1844, his animated, colorful, sympathetic views of Native Americans finally filled the void of imagery. Suddenly, Europeans and Americans were able to visualize the people and customs of whom they had read so extensively, and to gain a level of respect for the Native Americans, so often feared, misunderstood or misrepresented. The artist's stunning lithographs ranged from portraits to depictions of tribal ceremonies, from the anecdotal to the idealized. Catlin appealed to his readers with the thrill of the hunt and the mystery of ritual, and conveyed his respect for his subjects masterfully. The immediacy of his images is irresistible, drawing viewers into the scenes and portraits with unprecedented intimacy. But even when Catlin issued the North American Indian Portfolio, just fifteen years after his expedition, his crusade to preserve America's "Noble Savage" was failing. The Indians were beginning to give way to the expansion of the American frontier and to European disease. Because most of Catlin's paintings and collections were destroyed by fire and neglect, his lithographs remain the principal medium by which his message was conveyed, and they have come to hold even greater significance today than when they were first published. The publisher of this issue - the second with hand-coloured plates, was "the king of color plate books. Henry G. Bohn is one of the most extraordinary figures in English bookselling history... By 1841 Bohn's rise was marked by his famous "Guinea Catalogue," so named for its price, listing his enormous stock of books in a volume eight inches thick. By that time, Bohn was the most successful new and rare book dealer in London. He is a central figure in the rest of the story of the PORTFOLIO and other Catlin publications. "In the absence of any surviving records from Bohn's firm, the exact nature and timing of his arrangements with Catlin can only be hypothesized, but the first part seems to have been a marketing deal which called for Bohn to distribute Catlin's extant copies, and granted Bohn the right to publish his own version. Bohn must have felt Catlin had made a major blunder in the format of his book. Traditionally a large work of this sort would have been issued tinted,- on paper, or colored, tipped on card, with no text on the prints, in order to imitate the look of original watercolors. The plates would have remained unbound and laid in a portfolio. This was the style wealthy patrons expected, and Catlin's failure to recognize this may have cost him dearly. "Bohn moved quickly to fill the gap. He had Day & Haghe print a colored issue tipped on card, packaging it in portfolios made by Tarrant, the same binder Catlin had used, and with the same 20pp. letterpress text laid in. Typically, he used the available pieces that fit and created the new ones needed to produce the right package for the market. I call this first version on card the third issue.The card issue of the PORTFOLIO was first advertised in BENT'S MONTHLY LITERARY ADVERTISER of Jan. 10, 1845" (William Reese Co., Reese, issue 3). Catalogued by Kate Hunter., London: Geo. Catlin, Egyptian Hall [but Henry Bohn] (C. & J. Adlard, printers of text), 1844 [or 1845]., 0<

1845, ISBN: 152e1b568aa34baf8dd07321a8fd0cf8

[PU: London: Geo. Catlin, Egyptian Hall [but Henry Bohn] (C. & J. Adlard, printers of text), 1844 [or 1845].], "Folio (23 4/8 x 18 4/8 inches). Letterpress title-page and 9 leaves of text… More...

[PU: London: Geo. Catlin, Egyptian Hall [but Henry Bohn] (C. & J. Adlard, printers of text), 1844 [or 1845].], "Folio (23 4/8 x 18 4/8 inches). Letterpress title-page and 9 leaves of text, loose as issued (a bit thumbed, short marginal tears, one or two of which have been repaired). 25 handcolored lithographed plates after Catlin by Catlin and McGahey lithographed by Day and Haghe, plates printed before letters, heightened with gum arabic and mounted on card within ink-ruled frames loose as issued (plate one with a small stain, some plates with minor spotting, one or two mounts with small surface tears). Preserved in modern maroon morocco backed portfolio. Provenance: from the library of Gerald F. Fitzgerald, with his bookplate on the inside front cover of the portfolio, his sale, Sotheby's London, June 11, 2013, lot 59 First edition, third (first Bohn) issue, the first issue with the plates hand-coloured and mounted on card. George Catlin was the first artist to travel widely among the Plains Indians of North America and create an important body of paintings and graphics to illustrate their customs and artifacts. His purpose was both unselfish and romantic. He wanted, and labored unceasingly, to persuade his contemporaries that Native American culture should be honored and preserved. During the 1830's, Catlin gathered artifacts and turned his sketches and recollections of the prairie into paintings. In 1827, George Catlin, an illustrator from Philadelphia, became the first artist to attempt the perilous journey up the Missouri River, and the first to create visual records of his experiences traveling among the Plains Indians of North America. The artist himself best expressed his goal in the preface to the first edition of his North American Indian Portfolio: "The history and customs of such a people, preserved by pictorial illustrations, are themes worthy the lifetime of one man, and nothing short of the loss of my life shall prevent me from visiting their country and becoming their historian." Over the next eight years, Catlin would travel extensively throughout the Western Plains of America doing just that, and accumulating his "Indian Gallery", which consisted of hundreds of oil paintings he executed presenting the appearances and customs of the 48 different tribes of Native Americans he encountered during his journey. Catlin began to display his Indian Gallery in 1837, touring it in the United States for the next two years before taking the show to London. Having established a name for himself with the success of the Indian Gallery, Catlin turned his attention to finishing his first book, "he Manners, Customs, and Condition of the North American Indians " which first appeared in the fall of 1841. This book was to become one of the most important works on American Indians published in the 19th century. Not only is Catlin's work a wonderful description of his extensive travels and his career as an artist painting scenes of Indian life in the Midwest, but the book also contains hundreds of his illustrations that portray many aspects of Indian life: Their costumes, ceremonies, dwellings, villages, buffalo hunts, games, etc. Three significant maps showing Indian tribe locations of the period around 1840 further augment the illustrative plates. Catlin's project filled a great need. After Lewis & Clark's celebrated expedition up the Missouri River into the Pacific Northwest, Europeans read avidly of the sights and experiences of the voyage. They traced the route followed by the explorers, using the map that accompanied the wildly popular printed volumes on the journey. But a crucial aspect was missing from the accounts of the expedition of Lewis and Clark. Without pictorial documentation, Europeans (and Americans) were unable to visualize the unbelievable journey. This lack meant that the people, landscape, and customs of the vast American frontier remained abstract ideas-and much less vividly imaginable-to anyone who had not personally experienced the voyage. When Catlin first issued his volume in 1844, his animated, colorful, sympathe<

1845, ISBN: 152e1b568aa34baf8dd07321a8fd0cf8

[PU: London: Geo. Catlin, Egyptian Hall [but Henry Bohn] (C. & J. Adlard, printers of text), 1844 [or 1845].], Folio (23 4/8 x 18 4/8 inches). Letterpress title-page and 9 leaves of text,… More...

[PU: London: Geo. Catlin, Egyptian Hall [but Henry Bohn] (C. & J. Adlard, printers of text), 1844 [or 1845].], Folio (23 4/8 x 18 4/8 inches). Letterpress title-page and 9 leaves of text, loose as issued (a bit thumbed, short marginal tears, one or two of which have been repaired). 25 handcolored lithographed plates after Catlin by Catlin and McGahey lithographed by Day and Haghe, plates printed before letters, heightened with gum arabic and mounted on card within ink-ruled frames loose as issued (plate one with a small stain, some plates with minor spotting, one or two mounts with small surface tears). Preserved in modern maroon morocco backed portfolio. Provenance: from the library of Gerald F. Fitzgerald, with his bookplate on the inside front cover of the portfolio, his sale, Sotheby's London, June 11, 2013, lot 59 First edition, third (first Bohn) issue, the first issue with the plates hand-coloured and mounted on card. George Catlin was the first artist to travel widely among the Plains Indians of North America and create an important body of paintings and graphics to illustrate their customs and artifacts. His purpose was both unselfish and romantic. He wanted, and labored unceasingly, to persuade his contemporaries that Native American culture should be honored and preserved. During the 1830's, Catlin gathered artifacts and turned his sketches and recollections of the prairie into paintings. In 1827, George Catlin, an illustrator from Philadelphia, became the first artist to attempt the perilous journey up the Missouri River, and the first to create visual records of his experiences traveling among the Plains Indians of North America. The artist himself best expressed his goal in the preface to the first edition of his North American Indian Portfolio: "The history and customs of such a people, preserved by pictorial illustrations, are themes worthy the lifetime of one man, and nothing short of the loss of my life shall prevent me from visiting their country and becoming their historian." Over the next eight years, Catlin would travel extensively throughout the Western Plains of America doing just that, and accumulating his "Indian Gallery", which consisted of hundreds of oil paintings he executed presenting the appearances and customs of the 48 different tribes of Native Americans he encountered during his journey. Catlin began to display his Indian Gallery in 1837, touring it in the United States for the next two years before taking the show to London. Having established a name for himself with the success of the Indian Gallery, Catlin turned his attention to finishing his first book, "he Manners, Customs, and Condition of the North American Indians " which first appeared in the fall of 1841. This book was to become one of the most important works on American Indians published in the 19th century. Not only is Catlin's work a wonderful description of his extensive travels and his career as an artist painting scenes of Indian life in the Midwest, but the book also contains hundreds of his illustrations that portray many aspects of Indian life: Their costumes, ceremonies, dwellings, villages, buffalo hunts, games, etc. Three significant maps showing Indian tribe locations of the period around 1840 further augment the illustrative plates. Catlin's project filled a great need. After Lewis & Clark's celebrated expedition up the Missouri River into the Pacific Northwest, Europeans read avidly of the sights and experiences of the voyage. They traced the route followed by the explorers, using the map that accompanied the wildly popular printed volumes on the journey. But a crucial aspect was missing from the accounts of the expedition of Lewis and Clark. Without pictorial documentation, Europeans (and Americans) were unable to visualize the unbelievable journey. This lack meant that the people, landscape, and customs of the vast American frontier remained abstract ideas-and much less vividly imaginable-to anyone who had not personally experienced the voyage. When Catlin first issued his volume in 1844, his animated, colorful, sympathet<

1844, ISBN: 152e1b568aa34baf8dd07321a8fd0cf8

Hardcover

[PU: C. & J. Adlard for George Catlin, Egyptian Hall, London], (23 x 16 1/2 inches). [Pp.1-2] letterpress title (verso blank); [pp.3-4] To the Reader; pp.[5-]20 text. Text with green clot… More...

[PU: C. & J. Adlard for George Catlin, Egyptian Hall, London], (23 x 16 1/2 inches). [Pp.1-2] letterpress title (verso blank); [pp.3-4] To the Reader; pp.[5-]20 text. Text with green cloth spine. 25 lithographic plates, on thick paper, after Catlin, drawn on stone by Catlin (2) or McGahey (23), printed by Day & Haghe. Plates loose as issued. Publisher's half russet straight grained morocco and green cloth boards portfolio, upper cover lettered in gilt. Housed in a dark red morocco backed box. First edition of Catlin's Portfolio, a key work for any serious collection of Western Americana. Catlin published the first two issues of the North American Indian Portfolio simultaneously in late November 1844: with tinted lithographed plates (as here), and with the same plates hand-coloured. Catlin originally envisaged publishing a series of linked but separate portfolios, each with its own theme: religious rites, dances, costumes, etc. Unfortunately, the first series was the only one that was ever published, and its production proved to be so taxing (both financially and physically) that Catlin sold both the publication and distribution rights to Henry Bohn. Catlin's North American Indian Portfolio contains the results of his years of painting, living with and travelling amongst the Great Plains Indians. Catlin summarized the Native American as "an honest, hospitable, faithful, brave, warlike, cruel, revengeful, relentless, -- yet honourable, contemplative and religious being." In a famous passage from the preface of his North American Indian Portfolio, Catlin describes how the sight of several tribal chiefs in Philadelphia led to his resolution to record their way of life: "the history and customs of such a people, preserved by pictorial illustrations, are themes worthy of the lifetime of one man, and nothing short of the loss of my life shall prevent me from visiting their country and becoming their historian." He saw no future for either their way of life or their very existence, and with these thoughts always at the back of his mind he worked, against time, setting himself a truly punishing schedule, to record what he saw. From 1832 to 1837 he spent the summer months sketching the tribes and then finished his pictures in oils during the winter. The record he left is unique, both in its breadth and also in the sympathetic understanding that his images constantly demonstrate. A selection of the greatest of images from this record were published in the North American Indian Portfolio in an effort to reach as wide an audience as possible. In addition to publishing the present work, Catlin also spent from 1837 to 1852 touring the United States, England, France and Holland with his collection of paintings, examples of Indian crafts and accompanied by representative members of the Indian tribes. A highly important record of a "truly lofty and noble race . A numerous nation of human beings.three-fourths of whose country has fallen into the possession of civilized man . twelve million of whose bodies have fattened the soil in the mean time; who have fallen victims to whiskey, the small-pox, and the bayonet" (Catlin). Abbey Travel 653; Field 258; Howes C-243; McCracken 10; Sabin 11532; Wagner-Camp 105a:1; William S. Reese, The Production of Catlin's North American Indian Portfolio, 1844-1876.<