AN INQUIRY INTO THE ORIGIN OF THE ANTIQUITIES OF AMERICA. WITH AN APPENDIX, CONTAINING NOTES, AND "A VIEW OF THE CAUSES OF THE SUPERIORITY OF THE MEN OF THE NORTHERN OVER THOSE OF THE SOUTHERN HEMISPHERE," BY JAMES LAKEY, M.D.
New York: Published for Subscribers, by J.C. Colt; London: Longman, Rees, Orme, Brown, Green, & Longman; Paris: A. & W. Galignani & Co., 1839. 30 cm. 142 pp. Illustrated with 11 lithographed plates, including five hand-colored, and one folding frontispiece, some 18 feet long, printed on tissue, all lithographed by "Samyn Cincinnati, O." Original gilt illustrated brown cloth, some wear and spotting to cloth, rebacked, original spine laid down, new endpapers, some foxing to plates and text, all edges gilt. Contemporary ownership signature on title page. The long folding frontis. of the Boturini Codex has one small hole in the tissue, affecting a part of one of the illustrations, plus two old tape repairs on verso, darkening a small portion of the paper. Howes indicates that this plate "is often lacking." A Cincinnati edition, with the same collation, appeared the same year. According to Jay Last in his book "The Color Explosion: Nineteenth-Century American Lithography," [Santa Ana: 2005], p.268, Louis Samyn was Cincinnati's first lithographer, active there from the 1830s on.
The frontispiece, on tissue is 18 feet long and represents a remarkable achievement at any time, but especially in early Cincinnati. Item #63915
HOWES D226 SABIN 19333 FIELD 416.
Price: $650.00