Sep 17, 2009 - Sale 2186

Sale 2186 - Lot 128

Price Realized: $ 13,200
?Final Price Realized includes Buyer’s Premium added to Hammer Price
Estimate: $ 2,500 - $ 3,500
UNIQUE HAND-MADE PRINTS OF HUNDREDS OF BOTANICAL SPECIMENS (HAWAII.) Book of botanical pressings from the South Pacific. Approximately 280 ink pressings on 69 pages, with tissue guards between each. Folio, 19 x 11 inches, 1/2 calf, moderate wear; moderate foxing, a few minor tears and folds. Hawaii and the South Pacific, circa 1850-59
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Additional Details

These monoprints were apparently done by a New Bedford, MA sailor while traveling with a whaling or China trade vessel in the South Pacific in the 1850s. They were created by inking botanical specimens and then transferring the ink to paper. Many of the plants are identified in pencil, though generally by their common English or Pacific names rather than their scientific names. The volume's spine title reads "Na Lau Hawaii," which translates roughly to "The leaves of Hawaii." The first image is a taro leaf, titled "Kalo" after the Hawaiian term for the plant. Other typically Hawaiian plants include the palapalai fern and haha. Many food plants are represented, from pineapple to banana to breadfruit to papaya. Most of the pages give no direct evidence of each plant's origin, but five of the later pages are titled "Aitutaki," which is the name of one of the Cook Islands south of Hawaii. They are followed by two pages headed "Leaves from Akaroa, N.Z.," placing the specimens from a town on the eastern coast of New Zealand's South Island.
The compiler of this volume is unknown, but created prints on loose sheets which were later bound. The front free endpaper bears an embossed stamp from the New Bedford booksellers and binders Parsons & Co., who were at the 107 Union Street address circa 1855-60. The volume was found among the family papers of an unidentified old New Bedford maritime family, and then sold at a Skinner sale, 29 November 2007, lot 572, to the present owner.