(HAWAII LAHAINALUNA) Bailey E[dward] (artist); Kalama [Samu

Sale 2384 - Lot 48

Price Realized: $ 70,000

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

Estimate: $ 20,000 - $ 30,000

(HAWAII--LAHAINALUNA.) Bailey, E[dward], (artist); Kalama, [Samuel P.], (engraver.) Honolulu as seen from the foot of Puawaina, Punch-bowl hill. Extremely rare and important separately-issued engraved view of Honolulu, printed on the island at the famous Lahainaluna Seminary press. 300x510 mm, margins ample from neatline on all sides; foxed, one horizontal and three vertical hard creases where previously folded, folds reinforced on verso with fairly new cellotape, which requires professional removal, minor loss at intersecting folds. Provenance, as best as we can ascertain: Lucia Garratt Smith, missionary at Lahainaluna; sent to her mother, Martha "Patty" Smith, by whom docketed on verso. Lahainalua, [Sandwich Islands]: 1837 [but 1838]

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Additional Details

The present example is substantially enriched by the inclusion, in the left lower margin, of an extensive manuscript key, almost definitely written by the missionary Lucia Garratt Smith, in which she documents the important houses and landmarks around Honolulu. It reads as follows:
a. No 1 Corner where Marcia's room is.
1. Mr. Castle's dwelling
2. Mr. Bingham's [ditto]
3. Book Bindery.
4. Printing Office
5. Mr. Chamberlain's dwelling.
6. Dr. Judd's Yard.
7. Native Chapel.
8. Bell house
9. Mr. Cook's dwelling.
10. Mr. Dimond's [ditto]
11. Native School-house.
12. Charity School-house.
13. House of the British Consul.
14. Fort & Residence of the chiefs.
15. Seamans Chapel.

Lucia and her sister Marcia Smith (named in the first line) arrived at Honolulu on the bark Mary Frazier, on April 9, 1837. The Mary Frazier was the first vessel to be chartered by the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions, and its complement of 32 missionaries was the largest ever dispatched. The arrival of the passengers was known as the "Great Missionary Reinforcement of 1837". Marcia would go on to work as a missionary at Punahou, on Oahu, and Lucia went to Lahainaluna.

In 1834, the Lahainaluna Seminary had acquired a printing press, and under the direction of Rev. Lorrin Andrews a major publication project began. Several sources relate that copper was practically nonexistent on the islands, and the nascent publishers turned to visiting ships for hull sheeting to make their plates. A 1920 exhibition catalog entry from the Peabody Essex Museum (one of the few reference works to record this view), mentions that it was printed from sheathing copper.

"This bird's-eye view of Honolulu from Punchbowl (Pouwaina) is the largest, and one of the most important, of the Lahainaluna engravings. Honolulu, even in the 1830s, was acknowledged as the most important port in the Northern Pacific, and this image, as stark and unpromising as it appears to us, is its earliest published view." - Forbes, Engraved at Lahainaluna, Pl 27, page 119. No examples in AE, nor AMPR, nor ABPC.