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Two large octavo volumes (10 11/16 x 7 5/8 inches; 272 x 194 mm.). [iv], [1]-450; [1]-541, [1, blank] pp. Complete with *ninety-nine hand-colored lithographic plates heightened with gum arabic, as enumerated in the list of illustrations at the beginning of each volume (61 in volume one, and 38 in volume two, all with original tissue-guards). Some occasional and very minor foxing otherwise a near fine and clean example, the lithograph plates with superb hand coloring. Bound in original half dark brown morocco over diced brick-red cloth, spines with five raised bands decoratively ruled and decorated in blind in compartments, second and third compartments lettered in gilt, marbled endpapers. Cloth sides with some minor discoloration, otherwise fine. Small neat blue ink stamp "A. Noel" on top blank margin of both title-pages. Most cataloguers take their cue from the title page which states 'one hundred illustrations' but this is incorrect as the list of plates makes clear. The plates are after illustrations, chiefly by Charles Bird King, selected from the Indian Gallery, of important chiefs and characteristic individuals in native dress from the various Indian tribes and nations of pre-1830 America. This work was first published in three volumes in folio between 1836 and 1844, with 120 hand colored plates. It was reissued in octavo with the plates reduced in 1850. Several octavo editions were published between 1850 and the 1870s, with varying number of plates, some maintaining the original 120 and some abridged to contain as few as forty or fifty plates. All are highly prized today. Thomas McKenney (1785-1859), who served as both superintendent of Indian trade and head of the Bureau of Indian Affairs, initiated a project to document Native American leaders that visited Washington D.C. While McKenney s anthropological study and preservation gives us histories and portraits of significant Native Americans, he nonetheless was an agent of government policies which suppressed the very people he chose to memorialize. "McKenney engaged the services of Charles Bird King (1785-1862), a well-known Washington portraitist, who had studied under the great Benjamin West and others, to paint this series of portraits" (Smithsonian). After years of work, these portraits would be reproduced as hand-colored lithographs in the History of the Indian Tribes of North America. "With each portrait is connected a biographical sketch of the individual whom it is intended to represent, interspersed with anecdotes and narrations. The work contains also a historical account of the various Indian tribes within the borders of the United States" (Sabin 43410a). Tragically, an 1865 fire in the Smithsonian would destroy King s original oil paintings. Beautifully reproduced here, the lithographs reveal the personalities and nobility of their subjects. Bennet, p. 79 (folio); Field, p. 256 (folio); Howes M-129; Sabin 43411 (first octavo). Near Fine. Seller Inventory # 6335
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