Nov 29, 2001 - Sale 1916

Sale 1916 - Lot 138

Price Realized: $ 3,910
?Final Price Realized includes Buyer’s Premium added to Hammer Price
Estimate: $ 4,000 - $ 6,000
(INDIANS.) Catlin, George. O-Kee-Pa: A Religious Ceremony; and other Customs of the Mandans.<> 13 chromolithographed plates after Catlin by Simonau and Toovey. 8vo, publisher's cloth gilt, worn at edges, backstrip toned with an ink notation, light spotting to the covers; recased; scattered foxing, cellotape stains to rear pastedown, early owner's inscription on the half-title. with a later edition of the folium reservatum laid in<>, cellotape stains [see description below]. Howes C244; Sabin 11543; Field 262. Philadelphia [but London], 1867
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Additional Details



This edition printed on London sheets with a cancelled title after the London imprint. The early owner's inscription on the half-title by Anna E. McConnell indicates that this copy was presented to George B. Smith (her father) by Frank Catlin (George Catlin's brother.)
O-Kee-Pa, a Mandan Indian religious ceremony, contained torture and sexually explicit dancing. The latter was deemed too shocking for the public. Thus, an exceedingly rare three-page description of the buffalo dancing, titled Folium Reservatum, was printed contemporaneously to the book in a very limited run of about 25 copies. Laid in to this copy is a letterpress two-page bifolium on shiny paper edition of the Folium Reservatum, limited to 50 copies and probably printed in the late 19th century. This edition of the Folium Reservatum is not listed in any of the usual bibliographies on the subject and we could locate only one institutional copy which bears a similar description.<