Original Rare Antique Print of Two Ruins in Mexico, 1857

Name: Original Rare Antique Print of Two Ruins in Mexico, 1857
Brand: American Maps and Prints
SKU: BG-10124
Price: 245 USD
Availability: InStock

$245

€220 · 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: Mexico
Reference: BG-10124

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 ruins on one sheet, an original steel engraving from Die Kunstwerke vom Alterthum bis auf die Gegenwart by C.A. Menzel, published in 1857, with the two views numbered 1 and 2 and a plate number in the upper left corner. The sheet is cataloged as ruins in Mexico.

The upper view shows a bare conical hill under a wide sky, with a low stone building built into its foot. The building has a small doorway at its center, and a rock and a few scattered stones lie before it, framed by a dark tree at the left and dense foliage at the right. The lower view shows a stepped pyramid, its steep central stair rising to a small temple with a dark doorway and a decorated upper story, set on a bare plain with agave, tall cacti and palms around it.

Menzel's book, an illustrated survey of the works of architecture, painting and sculpture from antiquity to the present, offered German readers a view of the ancient buildings of the Americas alongside those of Europe and Asia, and these two views belong to the pre-Hispanic monuments of Mexico.

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