Apr 07, 2022 - Sale 2600

Sale 2600 - Lot 325

Price Realized: $ 37,500
?Final Price Realized includes Buyer’s Premium added to Hammer Price
Estimate: $ 20,000 - $ 30,000
(MEXICO--PLATE BOOKS.) Frederick Catherwood. Views of Ancient Monuments in Central America, Chiapas and Yucatan. Map in red and black, 25 tinted lithographic plates, plus gilt chromolithograph title page. [1], 24 pages. Folio, 21 x 14 1/4 inches, contemporary 1/4 morocco with gilt title on front board, minor wear; most plates detached and laid in, intermittent foxing, minor wear; earlier bookplate on front pastedown. London: F. Catherwood, 1844

Additional Details

First edition. Catherwood accompanied archaeologist John Lloyd Stephens to sites in Mexico, Honduras, and Guatemala from 1839 to 1841. Stephens published his comprehensive account in 1841 with much smaller plates after Catherwood's drawings, but these folio renderings by leading lithographers are regarded as among the finest archaeological plates of the 19th century.

Others bear an 1844 New York Bartlett & Welford imprint on the title page; some deluxe copies were printed on card without captions. All were issued simultaneously as part of the same edition of 300. This copy bears the bookplate of Lord Braybrooke, presumably Richard Griffin, 3rd Baron Braybrooke (1783-1858), a Fellow of the Society of Antiquaries. Hill 263; Palau 50290; Sabin 11520 ("beautiful book").