(PORTRAITURE) Lester C Edwards; editor The Gallery of Illust

Sale 2344 - Lot 216

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Estimate: $ 4,000 - $ 6,000

LITHOGRAPHIC PLATES OF EARLY MATHEW BRADY PHOTOGRAPHS (PORTRAITURE.) Lester, C. Edwards; editor. The Gallery of Illustrious Americans. 9 (of 12) portrait plates lithographed by d'Avignon after photographs by Brady, on printed mounted as issued, each with Brady's embossed stamp in the lower margin of the mount. [1], 20 [of 27] leaves. Folio, 21 x 15 inches, publisher's gilt pictorial cloth, worn, rear board detached; foxing to the plates, most of it limited to the mounts, first 6 and last 6 leaves detached from binding with moderate edge wear, lacking portraits of Clay, Audubon, and Cass, along with the related biography leaves for each, and the index leaf; with half-title reading "The Gift Book of the Republic." New York: Brady, d'Avignon, and Lester, 1850

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This project was financed by the young Mathew Brady as a means of bringing his photographic craft to the attention of a larger audience. He paid $100 his engraver d'Avignon per lithograph. The result was a critical and artistic success, though not a financial one. The illustrious Americans represented here are: Zachary Taylor, John C. Calhoun, Daniel Webster, Silas Wright, John C. Frémont, William H. Prescott, Winfield Scott, Millard Fillmore, and William E. Channing. "Its portraits are among the best surviving ones of the time"--Taft, Photography and the American Scene, page 60. Panzer, Brady, pages 62-65.