America, River Crossing by Indigenous People with Rafts and Canoes, De Bry, 1594

1594 · Views & Engravings

America, River Crossing by Indigenous People with Rafts and Canoes, De Bry, 1594

Name: America, River Crossing by Indigenous People with Rafts and Canoes, De Bry, 1594
Brand: Theodor de Bry
SKU: BG-14129-29
Price: 435 USD
Availability: InStock

$435

€390 · dollar price at today's exchange rate

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

Date: 1594
Maker: Theodor de Bry
Kind: Views & Engravings
Size: 32 × 19.5 cm (12.6 × 7.7 in)
Condition: Good. Good to very good condition. Light age-related toning and minor surface wear consistent with a late 16th-century copper engraving. Paper remains sound and supple, with strong impressions. Hand coloring well preserved. No restoration observed.
Period: Colonial America
Reference: BG-14129-29

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

Native people crossing a river without bridges, an original copper engraving with early hand color from Theodor de Bry's America series, in the Latin edition issued in Frankfurt am Main about 1594 to 1596. The plate is numbered "II" and headed "Quo compendio Indi, naviculis seu scaphis aut pontibus carentes, flumina traiiciant."

The scene shows several crossing methods side by side. A raft of logs carries two men and a stack of barrels along the upper stream, while a rope strung between the banks hauls a woven basket across the water. Two men with bows ride a log craft in the foreground, and a swimmer pushes a bundle of goods ahead of him. Figures wait at both shores, and the colorist has laid green on the trees and blue-gray on the water. The text beneath the image, in Latin, describes the crossing.

The old description places the scene in New Spain (Mexico). De Bry's plates were engraved in Frankfurt after the narratives and drawings of travelers such as Girolamo Benzoni, and they shaped European ideas of the Americas for generations.

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