Catlin, George

Catlin's North American Indian Portfolio. Hunting Scenes and Amusements of the Rocky Mountains and Prairies of America. From Drawings and Notes of the Author, made during Eight Years' Travel amongst Forty-Eight of the Wildest and Most Remote Tribes of Savages in North America. London: Geo. Catlin, Egyptian Hall (C. and J. Adlard, printers of text), 1844



Broadsheets (22 3/4 x 16 7/8 in.; 578 x 429 mm). 25 fine handcolored lithographed plates, heightened with gum arabic, after Catlin by Catlin and McGahey, lithographed by Day and Haghe, letterpress title-page and 9 leaves of text; text leaves lightly soiled and with a few short marginal tears, plates lightly brown-toned, some with marginal soiling or minor marginal tears, chips, or creases, plate 12 more severely soiled and worn at edges with several marginal repairs, plates 1 and 14 remargined at fore-edges just within rule, plate 1 remargined at lower and left margins. Text in original half maroon morocco over maroon cloth, front cover gilt-lettered, yellow-coated endpapers; rebacked, rubbed, rear free endpaper lacking. Plates loose in modern half maroon morocco portfolio gilt.

Abbey, Travel 653 note; Field, Indian Bibliography 258; Howes C243; McCracken 10; Reese, "The Production of Catlin's North American Indian Portfolio, 1844–1876," issue I:1; Sabin 11453; Schwerdt 1:100; Wagner-Camp 105a:1

First edition, first issue; the only handcolored issue published by Catlin himself. "These beautiful scenes in Indian life are probably the most truthful ever presented to the public" (Field) and are the result of Catlin's eight years of field research and painting among the native peoples of the American West. In a famous passage from the preface, Catlin describes how the sight of several Indian chiefs in Philadelphia led to his resolution to record their vanishing way of life: "The history and customs of such a people, preserved by pictorial illustrations, are themes worthy the lifetime of one man, and nothing short of the loss of my life shall prevent me from visiting their country and becoming their historian."

Catlin initially planned to publish other thematic portfolios of reproductions of paintings from his Indian Gallery—religious rites, dances, and costumes, for example—but the set of Hunting Scenes and Amusements was the only one he issued. The publication of the Portfolio overextended the artist's resources, and its publication and distribution was very shortly taken over by Henry Bohn. The Bohn issues were colored in an exceptionally bright and vibrant manner, and the present first issue is the only one in which the coloring reflects Catlin's own palette.