Antique America Engraving Chile Natives & Guatemala Serpents Drake, 1771

Name: Antique America Engraving Chile Natives & Guatemala Serpents Drake, 1771
Brand: American Maps and Prints
SKU: BG-13599-96
Price: 310 USD
Availability: InStock

$310

€279 · dollar price at today's exchange rate

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

Date: 1771
Kind: Views & Engravings
Size: 28.2 × 19.5 cm (11.1 × 7.7 in)
Condition: Good. Good antique condition with age-appropriate toning and light foxing. Minor handling marks and faint creases consistent with an eighteenth-century book plate. A small tear touching the lower plate mark.
Period: Colonial America
Places: Central America, Chile
Reference: BG-13599-96

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

Two scenes of South and Central America on one sheet, an original copper engraving from Drake's Voyages (A New Universal Collection of Authentic and Entertaining Voyages and Travels), published in London around 1771. The words "Engraved for Drake's Voyages" run across the top of the sheet.

The upper scene is captioned "Habits of the People of Chili in America." It shows a woman at the left and a man at the center, who carries a tool with a hooped end over his shoulder, with two children crouching between them and, at the right, a woman with a basket and a large jug. Low walls and hills fill the background. The lower scene is captioned "Remarkable Serpents and Baboons of Gautimala in America." A large ape-like creature stands among palm trees with a human-faced animal peering over its back, while coiled serpents, one with a dragon-like head, move across the foreground. The creatures are drawn from travelers' reports rather than from life.

Many of the illustrations in Drake's compilation derive from earlier sources, among them Arnoldus Montanus's De Nieuwe en Onbekende Weereld (1671), and the plates reflect how Europeans of the period imagined the peoples and wildlife of the Americas.

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