Antique Print of a Ruin in Peru, South America, 1857

Name: Antique Print of a Ruin in Peru, South America, 1857
Brand: American Maps and Prints
SKU: BG-10126
Price: 180 USD
Availability: InStock

$180

€160 · dollar price at today's exchange rate

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

Date: 1857
Kind: Maps
Size: 26 × 21 cm (10.2 × 8.3 in)
Condition: Good. General age-related toning. Please study image carefully.
Period: Westward Expansion & Civil War
Places: Peru, South America
Reference: BG-10126

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 richly carved ruined façade rising out of tropical growth, an original steel engraving from Die Kunstwerke vom Alterthum bis auf die Gegenwart by C.A. Menzel, published in 1857. The print is untitled and carries a plate number at the upper left.

The view shows a long, low range of stone chambers with a tall, narrow tower rising at the right, and a smaller block with mask-like faces at the left. The façade is covered with geometric ornament: a stepped fret band, rows of square panels with projecting bosses, and, on the tower, a column of carved faces and serpent forms. A broad set of steps leads up through the foreground, where a man in a wide-brimmed hat stands holding a small child, and trees and bushes grow from the cornices and the crumbling top of the building.

The listing places the ruin in Peru, but the carved façade and its decoration in the Puuc style point instead to the Maya ruins of the Yucatan peninsula. The engraver has shown the heavy overgrowth that explorers of the period found in these sites.

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