(ABOLITION) Louis Prang Co lithographers The American Decla

Sale 2663 - Lot 15

Price Realized: $ 5,000

?Final Price Realized includes Buyer’s Premium added to Hammer Price

Estimate: $ 4,000 - $ 6,000

(ABOLITION.) Louis Prang & Co., lithographers. The American Declaration of Independence Illustrated. Hand-colored tinted lithograph, 22½ x 17 inches; faint dampstaining, several closed tears, mat toning, laid down on foam board. Boston: Thayer & Co., 1861

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Depicts an American eagle raising aloft two crossed flags and a basket with a Black man casting off his chains, captioned "Break every yoke, Let the oppressed go free." Below them is a cheering multiracial crowd including a Union soldier and a Boston Herald newsboy. Above the flags are the words "All Men are Created Equal--Stand by the Declaration." At the top and to the sides are several abolitionist verses, starting "My rays, where'er on earth they strike / Fall on the black and white alike." The art was by Dominique Fabronius, after a design by R. Thayer. Holzer in "Prang's Civil War Pictures" (page 19) speculates that it may have been issued as a premium for Boston Herald subscribers. The image was featured as the cover illustration of Maurice Lee's 2005 book "Slavery, Philosophy, and American Literature, 1830-1860." Reilly, American Political Prints 1861-41. One other traced at auction, at a Swann sale, 28 February 2006, lot 12.