Plates from The Aboriginal Port Folio - photo 1
Plates from The Aboriginal Port Folio - photo 2

Plates from The Aboriginal Port Folio

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$ 37 800
Auction dateClassic
26.05.2022 10:00UTC -04:00
Auctioneer
CHRISTIE'S
Event location
USA, New York
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Archive
ID 753078
Lot 170 | Plates from The Aboriginal Port Folio
Plates from The Aboriginal Port FolioJames Lewis, 1838-1839LEWIS, James Otto (1799-1858). [A group of loose plates and text from the quarto edition of The Aboriginal Port Folio. New York and London, 1838-39.]A group of text and plates from the quarto edition of Lewis's work, including 17 plates printed by lithographer John Bufford. Reese notes that despite the "sputtering completion" of the first folio edition, "the Aboriginal Port Folio was to have an extraordinary afterlife of attempts to create other editions, with no less than four abortive versions begun and abandoned between 1838-1853." The present lot is a sampling of these attempts, including the 3 pp. London preface to the 1838 edition. This edition "was proposed to be five numbers with six plates each, accompanied by an explanatory text. Only one number, with seven plates, was ever issued, its preface dated February 1838." The London preface is together here with ten plates printed not by J.Graf (who did the London edition) but by John. H. Bufford. "The 1838 New York edition came closer to succeeding than any of the other quarto editions, with three of the five proposed numbers ultimately appearing. From its rarity we must supposed it found very few subscribers at the time. Only the copy at Washington University in St Louis has all three numbers with the full eighteen plates as issued; all other surviving copies are one or two parts only." The present group includes 7 loose plates printed by Bufford, together with an assembled group in wrappers comprising: 8 plates by Bufford together with text; 3 text sections without plates; and two Bufford plates without text. Between the loose plates and the wrappered group, there are four duplicate plates. Reese, James Otto Lewis and His Aboriginal Port Folio, New Haven, 2008).Quarto. Together 17 plates (including 4 duplicates) and 36 pages of text (including 3 pp. Preface to the London edition), comprised of: (1) 7 loose hand-colored plates (283 x 228mm), all but one matted (one plate with small loss to margin, a little toning to versos; unmatted plate with some browning and stab holes); and (2) Text and plates sewn in paper wrappers (300 x 235mm), including 10 plates (2 of which are colored) and text from parts 1 and 3, paginated 1-16 and 33-52 (some foxing and staining).
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