1823 Hand-Colored Engraving - Gaucho Hunting Ostrich with Bolas in the Pampas

Name: 1823 Hand-Coloured Engraving - Gaucho Hunting Ostrich with Bolas in the Pampas
Brand: American Maps and Prints
SKU: BG-13997-9
Price: 155 USD
Availability: InStock

$155

€140 · dollar price at today's exchange rate

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Shipping to the United States: $51 standard, $73 express, insured and tracked.

Date: 1823
Kind: Views & Engravings
Size: 19.5 × 23.5 cm (7.7 × 9.3 in)
Condition: Good. Condition report: Margins lightly toned, scattered minor foxing spots, original hand-coloring remains vivid, slight edge wear, no major tears or damage. Study the images carefully.
Period: The Early Republic
Places: Argentina
Reference: BG-13997-9

What the condition grades mean

Excellent: Bright and clean, with no faults worth mentioning.
Very good: Only light signs of age, such as faint toning.
Good: Normal signs of age for a sheet of this period: toning, some foxing, small marks or neat old repairs.
Fair: Clear faults such as staining, tears or repairs, priced to match.

Every fault we see is written in the condition note, and the whole sheet is shown uncropped in the photos.

Guaranteed original. This is an original of the period stated, not a later reproduction or print-on-demand copy. If it is ever shown to be otherwise, we refund you in full.

Shipping to the United States. Sent from our gallery in Langweer, the Netherlands, flat between boards or rolled in a tube, and fully insured. Delivery and import charges.

About this piece

A gaucho hunting a rhea with bolas on the pampas, an original hand-colored copper engraving of 1823 by Goetz from Friedrich Johann Bertuch's Bilderbuch fuer Kinder (Picture Book for Children). The plate is lettered "Verm. Gegenstaende. CCLXIV" at the upper left and "Melanges. CCLXIV" at the upper right, and the engraver's signature appears in the lower left corner of the image.

The rider fills the center of the sheet, stretched flat along a galloping chestnut horse, one arm raised over his head with the weighted cords of the bolas whirling above him. He wears a red head cloth, a white shirt, a striped saddle blanket and fringed white trousers, and his feet are in open sandals. Ahead of the horse a rhea, the South American ostrich, runs through the grass with its wings spread, and a second bird stands farther off. Grazing animals dot the plain, a stream runs across the middle distance, and large-leaved plants fill the foreground under a pale sky.

The bolas, three stone or iron balls on a thong, were thrown to entangle the legs of running game, and the pampas of the River Plate were the country where gauchos used them. Bertuch's picture book ran in parts from 1790 to 1830 and numbered nearly 1,200 plates.

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