Description
- Lewis, James Otto
- [The Aboriginal Port Folio; or a Collection of Portraits of the Most Celebrated Chiefs of the North American Indians. Philadelphia: published by the author, May 1835–December 1835]
- printed book
Folio (19 x 113/4 ins.; 490 x 295 mm). 64 handcolored lithographed plates after Lewis by Lehman & Duval (see below on the scarcity of sets with 72 and 80), 3 advertisement leaves for the first 3 parts, original printed blue illustrated wrapper for part 5 bound in; lacking title-page, some light marginal spotting to many plates, but well outside the images and the colors generally very well-preserved, a few minor closed tears mostly in lower margin. Contemporary morocco-backed cloth; broken, a little soiled, spine perished.
Provenance
The Estate of Betty C. Lewis
Literature
Bennett, p. 68; Clements, One Hundred Michigan Rarities 63; Field, Indian Bibliography 936; Reese, American Color Plate Books 23.
Catalogue Note
The first and rarest color plate book on North American Indians. James O. Lewis was born in Philadelphia in 1799, but migrated West and by 1820 he was employed as a painter and engraver in St. Louis. In 1823 he moved to Detroit, where his first Indian portraits were painted at the request of Governor Lewis Cass. From 1825 to 1827, Lewis accompanied Cass to treaty conventions at Prairie du Chien, Fort Wayne, Fond du Lac, and Green Bay, finding sitters for portraits—including Potawatomi, Winnebago, Shawnee, Sioux, Miami, Fox, Iowa—on all four occasions.
The work was issued to subscribers in ten parts, each with eight plates, though complete sets are very rare. The interest of subscribers dwindled as the publication of McKenney and Hall's History of the Indian Tribes of North America advanced and the last two parts were issued in very small numbers.
"The most usual format surviving is sixty-four plates, suggesting that Lewis held on to his subscribers fairly well for eight parts through December 1835. Much scarcer, but still to be found in some numbers, are seventy-two plates of nine parts. Almost impossible to find are eighty-plate complete sets" (Reese, Lewis, p. 25).
The present copy comes from the Lewis family through descent, suggesting that even those closest to the artist found obtaining complete sets difficult.
