Catalog Archive
Auction 99, Lot 546

"[Lot of 4 engravings]", Bodmer, Karl

Subject: Native Americans

Period: 1844 (circa)

Publication: Travels In the Interior of North America in the Years 1832 to 1834

Color: Black & White

Size:
12 x 10 inches
30.5 x 25.4 cm
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Karl Bodmer, (1809-1893), is among the most important 19th-century artists of the American West and Native Americans. Bodmer accompanied the German prince, Maximilian of Wied, on an expedition up the Missouri River in 1832. With Bodmer in charge of the pictorial documentary, Prince Maximilian, an experienced and respected traveler and naturalist, set out to put together as complete a study as possible of the western territories of the United States. The result was the publication of Maximilian's journals in successive German, French, and English editions between 1839 and 1844, and with it, a picture atlas of eighty-one aquatint engravings of Bodmer's watercolor paintings. The images presented the peoples of the Manadan, Cree, Sioux, Blackfoot, Minnataree, Assiniboin, and Gros Ventres tribes. The images are beautifully rendered landscapes, portraits, and scenes of Indian life which are now regarded as one of the most comprehensive and memorable visual surveys of the western territories ever made. Bodmer's original watercolors are in the permanent collection of the Joslyn Art Museum in Omaha, Nebraska. These aquatints are the only Bodmer images available to collectors.

A great group of Native American scenes. Lot includes: The Travellers Meeting with Minatarre Indians near Fort Clark; The Elkhorn Pyramid on the upper Missouri [Vig. XXI]; Crow Indians [Vig. XIII]; Horse Racing of Sioux Indians near Fort Pierre [Vig. XXX]. Published by Ackermann & Co.

References:

Condition: C

Trimmed within platemark as bound for this issue. Tissue guards still attached. Scattered foxing to most. Vig. XXX with short tear at top not affecting image.

Estimate: $2,500 - $3,000

Sold for: $1,900

Closed on 6/12/2002

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