?Final Price Realized includes Buyer’s Premium added to Hammer Price
Estimate: $ 25,000 - $ 35,000
(AMERICAN INDIANS.) Catlin, George. Catlin's North American Indian Portfolio. 25 hand-colored lithographs, each 22 x 15 1/2 inches, each plate laid down at a later date on thin flexible boards. 20 text pages. Folio, modern buckram-backed marbled boards, moderate wear at extremities; some plates foxed and/or creased, minor finger soiling in margins, final text leaf worn on outer margin. London: George Catlin, Egyptian Hall, printed by C. & J. Adlard, 1844
first edition, first issue. After creating his most important paintings in the American West in the early 1830s, Catlin had been giving public lectures on his paintings in Great Britain from 1841 onward, sometimes with a group of American Indians in what was essentially one of the first Wild West shows. For this seminal portfolio of large-format lithographs, he selected what he felt were the 25 most popular images from his shows. "In The North American Indian Portfolio, Catlin immortalized those scenes that would become forever associated with life on the Great Plains--buffalo, buffalo hunting, galloping horses, bronco riding, and roping"--Reddin, Wild West Shows, page 43. Catlin first issued these 25 plates with printed captions bound with the 20 pages of introductory text. Later issues put out by Bohn or Chatto & Windus were variously either mounted on card without captions, or had six extra plates, or had only 16 pages of text. The present set has been mounted on tabs in a sturdy binding. Thanks to William S. Reese for sharing his extensive unpublished research on this complex and important work. Provenance: Sold by bookseller Pierre Chrétien of Paris (see loose book tag and catalogue description) to the Taos Book Shop, and by them sold to the parents of the consignor circa 1971. Abbey Travel 653; Field 258; Howes C243 ("c"); Sabin 11532; Wagner-Camp 105a:1.
