Beschreibung:

MCKENNEY, THOMAS L., and JAMES HALL.History of the Indian Tribes of North America. Philadelphia: Edward C. Biddle and Daniel Rice and James G. Clark, 1837-1842-1844.
3 volumes. Folio (507 x 365 mm). 120 hand-colored lithographed plates finished with gum arabic, lithographed map leaf, and 17 pp lithographed facsimile signatures of subscribers (with two additional names added in manuscript to Pennsylvania subscribers). Original half-morocco, upper covers gilt lettered "Indian Gallery / 120 Illustrations," lower spine lettered in gilt, "L.A. Godey," yellow glazed endpapers, rebacked, retaining original spine, hinges reinforced.
Provenance: Louis Antoine Godey (1804-1878, publisher of Godey's Lady Book, spine stamped, manuscript identification in another hand); Helen Godey Wilson (1879-1937, bookplates).
FIRST EDITION of "one of the most distinctive and important books in Americana" (Reese).
In 1821-22, Thomas McKenney began assembling portraits of Native Americans that would eventually become part of a portrait gallery under the Smithsonian. He started by taking visiting Native American dignitaries to the studio of Charles Bird King in Washington, who would paint their portraits in oil, some copies for the dignitaries and some collected by McKenney. These portraits were eventually preserved in the War Department's "Indian Gallery," becoming part of the Smithsonian in 1858. The collection boasted 147 of McKenney's portraits of Native Americans, alongside about 200 paintings by John Mix Stanley, when it burned to the ground in 1865.
Thankfully, beginning in 1829, McKenney had embarked on a project to preserve his oil portraits in lithography, rescuing most of these important projects for posterity. In September 1829, he signed a contract to publish a work to consist of a history, biographies, and 120 lithographed plates. The works were issued serially in wrappers, and the first volume was collected and published in 1836. By the time the 3rd volume appeared in 1844, 15 years after the first contracts were signed, the monumental work had consumed six publishers, and employed 5 different lithographers.
"Its long and checkered publication history spanned twelve years and involved multiple lithographers (mainly Peter S. Duval and James T. Bowen) and publishers, but the final product is one of the most distinctive and important books in Americana. Almost all the plates are portraits of individual Native Americans, the majority painted from life by Charles Bird King" (Reese).
This copy, in its original contemporary binding, is from the contemporary American publisher Louis A. Godey. Godey was most famous for the influential Godey's Lady's Book beginning in 1830, famous for their representations of women's fashion employing hand-tinted lithographic plates. With the first issue of the title pages in volumes 1 & 3, the second issue of volume 2; the plates in mixed states as usual. See Lane, "A History of McKenney and Hall's History of the Indian Tribes of North America," Imprint, Vol. 27, no. 2 (Autumn 2002), 2-15. Howes M-129; Reese Stamped With A National Character 24; Sabin 43410a.