Antique Print of an Inhabitant of Brazil by H. Berghaus, 1855

Name: Antique Print of an Inhabitant of Brazil by H. Berghaus, 1855
Brand: American Maps and Prints
SKU: BG-09726
Price: 110 USD
Availability: InStock

$110

€100 · dollar price at today's exchange rate

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

Date: 1855
Kind: Views & Engravings
Size: 25.7 × 16.6 cm (10.1 × 6.5 in)
Condition: Good. Minor fading. Age-related toning. Please study image carefully.
Period: Westward Expansion & Civil War
Places: Brazil
Reference: BG-09726

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 Maxuruna portrait from South America, an original color print from the first volume of the Dutch edition of "De Volken van den Aardbodem" by Dr. Heinrich Berghaus, published by G. B. van Goor in Gouda in 1855. The plate is lettered "Maxurunas." and is cataloged as an inhabitant of Brazil.

The sheet shows a single head and shoulders figure, set against a lightly shaded ground. The man has long black hair falling to his shoulders, a dark topknot, and pale shell-like disks set in his nose, lower lip and ears. Long red feathers hang from the ears across the shoulders, and the skin is tinted in warm ochre washes, with the color applied by hand over a fine engraved outline.

Berghaus, a German geographer, built his survey of the world's peoples around portrait and costume plates like this one, and the Dutch edition of 1855 brought them to readers in the Netherlands. The portrait records how European ethnographers of the mid-nineteenth century pictured the peoples of the Amazon basin.

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