May 07, 2020 - Sale 2534

Sale 2534 - Lot 83

Price Realized: $ 3,500
?Final Price Realized includes Buyer’s Premium added to Hammer Price
Estimate: $ 1,000 - $ 1,500
FROM A VIEW DRAWN BY AN AFRICAN-AMERICAN ARTIST (AFRICA.) Lehman & Duval; lithographers. A View of Bassa Cove (in Liberia). Lithograph, 11 x 16 1/2 inches; minimal wear. [Philadelphia, 1837]

Additional Details

This attractive view depicts American emigrant farmers in a fenced compound, with livestock and a dozen new buildings. In the foreground across the cove are three seated Africans. Research by the Library Company of Philadelphia shows that this print was advertised in the Colonization Herald, of 17 June 1837, where it was described as "from a drawing made on the spot by Dr. Robert McDowall." McDowall was an African-American physician who was sent by the Pennsylvania Colonization Society to Liberia to care for other emigrants. None others traced at auction, and none in OCLC (though copies are traced at the Library of Congress and the Library Company).