Beschreibung:

MCKENNEY, Thomas Loraine (1785-1859) and James HALL (1793-1868). History of the Indian Tribes of North America, with Biographical Sketches and Anecdotes of the Principal Chiefs. Embellished with One Hundred and Twenty Portraits. Philadelphia; Daniel Rice & James G. Clark, 1842-44. 3 volumes, 2 o (500 x 354 mm). 120 hand-colored lithographic plates after Charles Bird King James Otto Lewis P. Rhindesbacher and R.M. Sully, drawn on stone by A. Newsam, A.H., R.T., H.D. and others, printed and colored by Lehman & Duval, or J.T. Bowen, vol. III with two lithographic maps and one table printed recto of one leaf. (Vol. II Me-Na-Wa plate with 4 in. tear to blank portion of image, vol. III Encampment plate and map cropped along fore-edge, affecting image, occasionally some light staining to a few plates). Contemporary half morocco by Blackwell, spine gilt in seven compartments with raised bands, lettered in the second and fourth (vol. III with portion of head of spine missing, rubbing to joints and edges). FIRST EDITION OF "THE GRANDEST COLOR PLATE BOOK ISSUED IN THE UNITED STATES UP THE TIME OF ITS PUBLICATION" (Reese). "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 (who also reworked the less skilfull portraits of James Otto Lewis . The complicated circumstances of its production have left a bibliographical stew of issues and issue points that are yet to be satisfactorily resolved" (ibid.). The present copy has the following BAL states: Titles: volume I, state B; volume II, state B; volume III, not stated, with Clark spelled correctly, dated 1844. Plates: War Dance, state A; Red Jacket, state C. Without the printed list of subscribers. The practice of taking portraits of the principal American Indians who came to Washington had begun as early as 1824. Chiefly painted by Charles Bird King they were deposited in the War Department. Col. McKenney, Superintendent of Indian Affairs in Washington, conceived of the plan of making a collection of biographies, enhanced by the addition of the portraits. A biographical sketch accompanies each portrait, and the work also contains a general history of the various Indian tribes within the borders of the United States. Bennett p. 79; BAL 6934; Field 992; Howes M-129; Reese Stamped with a National Character: Nineteenth Century American Color Plate Books 24; Sabin 43410a. (3)