California Indigenous Dress & Fishing Rafts – Early Ethnographic Engraving 1754

Name: California Indigenous Dress & Fishing Rafts – Early Ethnographic Engraving 1754
Brand: American Maps and Prints
SKU: BG-14129-32
Price: 270 USD
Availability: InStock

$270

€240 · dollar price at today's exchange rate

Buy now Ask a question

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

Date: 1754
Kind: Views & Engravings
Size: 36.8 × 24.6 cm (14.5 × 9.7 in)
Condition: Fair. Fair to good antique condition. The paper shows general age-related toning and scattered spotting. There is visible staining and discoloration in the upper margin and along parts of the sheet, as well as light surface wear.
Period: Colonial America
Places: California
Reference: BG-14129-32

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

California dress and fishing methods in a single copper engraving, engraved for Millar's New Complete and Universal System of Geography, signed "Thornton sculp." and published in London by Alexander Hogg, No. 16 Paternoster Row. The plate title reads "Dress of the Inhabitants of California with their manner of Rafts for Fishing, &c."

The view sits inside an ornamental frame of floral swags and urns, with an empty scroll cartouche at the top and the title on a ribbon below. On a rocky shore two figures in long hide cloaks stand together, one holding a bow, while a man at the right wears a feathered headdress and carries a bundle of spears or reeds. Behind them, two men on a raft of lashed logs fish with long poles, and birds cross a sky with a volcanic hill on the horizon.

Millar's geography was a London part-work that mixed maps, views and costume plates for general readers. California was still known mainly through the narratives of early voyagers, and the scene should be read as a European composition of the period.

★