1 A ? 9 1 8 5 4 1 UCSOUTHE RN REGIONAL L IBRARY FACILIT> 4 EAMES Description of a wood eneTaving illustratincr the South American Indians, Description of a Wood Engraving Illustrating the South American Indians C1505) By Wilberforce Eames (X/JI^UWiH\/^^t ^ The New York Public Library ig22 Description of a Wood Engraving Illustrating the South American Indians (1505) By Wilberforce Karnes The New York Public Library ig22 REPRINTED OCTOBER 1922 FROM THE BULLETIN OF THE NEW YORK PUBLIC LIBRARY OF SEPTEMBER 1922 PRINTED AT THE NEW YORK PUBLIC LIBRARY form p-ies [x-i8-22 3c] LIBRAEY _ , u... >;«■■■' V OF CAT JFORNIA 6 y 7 ' SANTA BARBARA DESCRIPTION OF A WOOD ENGRAVING ILLUSTRATING THE SOUTH AMERICAN INDIANS (1505) By Wilberforce Eames Bibliographer of the Library THE recent discovery of an extraordinary specimen of early Americana, after a disappearance of fifty-eight years, discloses an interesting story, perhaps unique in the history of print collecting. In preparing for the sale of a further portion of the manuscripts and books of the late Sir Thomas Phillipps, beginning on Tuesday, June 24th, 1919, at the auction rooms of Messrs. Sotheby, Wilkinson & Hodge, in London, there was brought to light again a woodcut print of remarkable interest, which is described in lot 57 of the catalogue as a "Unique Copy of the Earliest Xylographic Picture Relating to America that is Known.'' The note of the cata- loguer, who ascribes the printing to Augsburg, circa 1500, states that: "It is a large wood engraving, measuring 133^ inches by 8j4 inches, representing savages of Brazil (a country just then dis- covered) in a hut with their wives and children, dressed in their native dress and headgear. Hanging between two trees are the head and shoulder of a man roasting over a fire. In the distance on the sea are two ships. In the foreground are three warriors, two children playing, and a mother nursing another. In the back- ground are a man and a woman making love, and beside them is another figure engaged in making a meal off a human arm, while a younger one looks on." The catalogue is illustrated by a photo-process facsimile of the print, in reduced size, which shows below the picture four lines of description in Ger- man, not cut in the wood, but printed from metal type, in these words: "Disc figur anzaigt vns das volck vnd insel die gefunden ist durch den christenlichen kiinig zii Portigal oder von seinen vnderthonen. Die leiit sind also nacket hiibsch. braun wolgestalt von leib. ir heiibter. 1 1 halsz. arm. scham. fiisz. frawen vnd mann ain wenig mit federn be- deckt. Auch haben die mann in iren angesichten vnd brust vid [sic for vil] edel gestain. Es hat auch nyemantz nichts sunder sind alle ding gemain. 1| Vnnd die mann habendt weyber welche in gefallen. es sey mutter, schwester oder freiindt. darjnn haben sy kain vnderschayd. Sy streyten auch mit einander. Sy essen auch ainander selbs die er- schlagen 1| werden. vnd hencken das selbig fieisch in den ranch. Sy werden alt hundert vnd fiintzig iar. Vnd haben kain regiment." 4 THE NEW YORK PUBLIC LIBRARY The translation into English, as it is given in Henry Stevens's American Bibliographer, No. 1, January, 1854, page 8, is as follows: "This figure represents to us the people and island which have been discovered by the Christian King of Portugal or by his subjects. The people are thus naked, handsome, brown, well shaped in body, their heads, necks, arms, private parts, feet of men and women are a little covered with feathers. The men also have many precious stones in their faces and breasts. No one also has anything, but all things are in common. And the men have as wives those who please them, be they mothers, sisters, or friends, therein make they no distinction. They also fight with each other. They also eat each other even those who are slain, and hang the flesh of them in the smoke. They be- come a hundred and fifty years old. And have no government." This translation, with two slight variations, is reprinted word for word in the Sotheby catalogue, from the Puttick and Simpson catalogue of May 24, 1854, to be mentioned further on. At the Phillipps sale this lot was bought by Quaritch for £470. There is an interesting story connected with this leaf, which goes back to the time of its coming into the hands of Henry Stevens, in London, in December 1850. A writer in the Tx)ndon Times Literary Supplement of October 17, 1919, suggests that Stevens obtained it from the auction sale of the Valentia library at Lord Mountnorris's [not "Mountmorres's" as printed in the Tiiiies^ residence, Arley Castle, on December 6, 1852, an account of which is given in Stevens's "Recollections of Mr. James Lenox," p. 167-174, and he refers to lot 1070 of the catalogue, consisting of a "Collection of Voyages" in one volume, and among the various contents enumerated was one called "Description of the Braselians," and this lot was purchased by Pickering for Henry Stevens at £18. 10s. This theory of its source, how- ever plausible it may seem, is disproved by the following extracts from Stevens's letters to Mr. Lenox, while the latter was in France and Italy, in 1850-51, two years before the Mountnorris sale took place. Writing on Nov. 30, 1850, he adds in a postscript: "I am expecting any day a block book about 1496 relating to America ! ! It represents the Indians. I am all excitement to see it. I hope this swan will not prove a goose. If it comes in time I will take it to you." Again, on Dec. 24, 1850, he writes: — "I am glad you are coming soon to London. I shall have very many curious things to show you. Among which is the Block book relating to America. There is no mistake about it. It is here & is genuine, relating to Brazil, somewhere from 1497 to 1515. Mr. Jones of the Museum says it is the most curious thing of the kind he ever saw. Mr. Panizzi is very desirous to have it for the Museum. But he cannot have it. I am having it engraved for my work." WOOD ENGRAVING ILLUSTRATING SOUTH AMERICAN INDIANS 5 In his next letter, dated from Morley's Hotel, London, Jan. 26, 1851, he gives more details: — "The Block hook about America is all my fancy painted it, and has excited much curiosity here. I have had an accurate fac- simile of it cut in wood, and hand you enclosed one of the five proofs I have had taken off. I do not intend to part with either the original or a single proof of it, until my catalogue is out, unless I am driven to raise money. The original has five or six lines of text in old German letters explaining the cut. Altogether I look upon this Zylography as one of the most curious things about the early discovery of America that has ever come into my hands. I shall print only 100 copies of my forthcoming catalogue and shall give in it this Blockhook or Block-sheet. The original will be catalogued at £25. I have had the block cut for my Bihliographia Americana, but shall use 100 copies of it in my catalogue which I hope will be out by the first of April." The catalogue mentioned in these letters as in preparation, probably was never printed, so far as can be learned from Mr. Stevens's subsequent letters to Mr. Lenox in 1851, 1852, and 1853. Besides, no one else seemed to appre- ciate fully the importance of the print, and it remained unsold at the price of £25., originally affixed. In January, 1854, Mr. Stevens described it biblio- graphically, accompanied by a folded facsimile, in No. 1 of his American Bibliographer, p. 7-8, none of the books being priced in this list. On May 24th of the same year, it appeared in an auction sale of Stevens's books, at Puttick and Simpson's, as lot 27 of the catalogue, with the folded facsimile plate, and was bought in by the owner at £3.13.6. Again it was catalogued, with the price reduced to £ 12.12s., in Stevens's American Nuggets (London. 1857, reissued as Historical Nuggets in 1862), as no. 77, but without effect- ing a sale; and finally, after having been in his possession eleven years, it was sent again to auction at Puttick and Simpson's with what remained unsold of the "Nuggets,'' and appeared as no. 57 of part 1 of the catalogue, to be sold on Jan. 23, 1861, sale postponed to March 6, 1861, when it brought £ 15. 15s., C. J. Stewart, the bookseller, being the buyer. How or when the print passed into the possession of Sir Thomas Phillipps, has not been definitely determined. There is a strong probability, however, that Stewart was acting as agent for Sir Thomas at the sale, and bought it for him. Stewart was a dealer chiefly in theological books, and it is not at all likely that he would have speculated on his own account in a pur- chase of this kind at fifteen guineas. At any rate, from the date of this sale in March, 1861, all knowledge of the whereabouts of the print seems to have been lost, until its reappearance in 1919. In the meantime, Mr. Henry Harrisse published his Bibliotheca Ameri- cana Vetustissima (New York, 1866), and, under the year 1497, he copied for his no. 20, the inscription and description as given in Stevens's American 6 THE NEW YORK PUBLIC LIBRARY Bibliographer and Historical Nuggets, adding for its location ("British Mu- seum"), on what authority he does not state. This error as to location was repeated in Justin VVinsor's Narrative and Critical History of America (1885), vol. ii, p. 19, where it is made still worse by the statement that "The only known copy was bought in London at auction by the British Museum for £3.13s.6d. in 1854." In 1886, Henry Stevens published his Recollections of Mr. James Lenox, in which he gives on p. 173-174, a brief history of his former ownership of the print, and with reference to the assertions of Harrisse and Winsor that it was in the Museum, he says: "On enquiry at the British Museum in October and November 1885, no trace of this remarkable block-leaf could be found, and the librarians notwithstanding this cumulative evidence do not think the leaf ever found its way into the Library. I am unable now to trace this leaf on account of the death of Mr. Stewart and the discontinuance of his business." When the print turned up again in the Phillipps sale, Winsor's statement that it was in the British Museum was brought forward to refute the claim of the cataloguer that this copy was unique. The writer of the article entitled "The Earliest American View," in the Times Literary Supplement of Oct. 17, 1919, says: "Inquiry was again made at the British Museum, and again, after a good deal of searching, the leaf was found not to be in the Museum." Although the claim has been made that the picture is unique, such is not the fact, there being another copy of the same engraving in the Konigliche Hof- und Staatsbibliothek at Munich. In 1864, Emil Weller published at Nordlingen his supplementary volume to Panzer's Annalen der dltern deutschen Litteratur, with the title, Repertoriiim typographicmn. Die deutsche Literatur im ersten Viertel des sechzehnten Jahrhunderts. Among the forty-one publications in the German language described in this book under the year 1505, the follow- ing description of the block print appears on page 35: 317. *Ohne Ueberschrift. Text von 4 Z. beginnt : Dise f igur anzaigt vns das volck vnd insel die gefunden ist durch den cristenlichen kiinig zu Portigal oder von sein- en vnderthonen. . . o.O.u.J. (1505). Querfolioblatt mit grossem Holzsch. (Insulaner). — In Miinchen. This copy was seen by Harrisse, and he mentions it among other rarities which he examined at the Royal Library in Munich, on page viii of the introduction to his "Additions" to the Dibliotheca Americana Vetustissima (Paris, 1872). The probable date of the print is 1505, that being the year in which the earliest editions appeared of the German version of the Mundus Novus of Amerigo Vespucci, from which most of the statements in the long inscription appear to be taken. This account of the expedition to Brazil sent out in May, 1501, by the Christian King of Portugal, is in the form of a letter to Lorenzo WOOD ENGRAVING ILLUSTRATING SOUTH AMERICAN INDIANS 7 Pietro de Medici, and was printed in Latin at Paris as early as 1504, and at Augsburg in 1504. The German translation has a postscript at the end to the effect that it was made from the Latin copy received from Paris in May, 1505. It has the following title, copied from one of the four editions of that year: "Von der neu gefunden Region die wol ein ivelt genent mag werden, durch den Cristenlichen kiinig von portigal, zvunderbarlich erfunden." (In the Lenox collec- tion, Harrisse no. 38.) The account of the native Indians takes up three or more pages, from which the following passages have been extracted, in their exact order, and turned into English, for comparison with the inscription under the block-print: "They go naked, both men and women; they have well-shaped bodies, and in color nearly red; they bore holes in their cheeks, lips, noses and ears, and stuff these holes with blue stones, crystals, marble and alabaster, very fine and beautiful. This custom is followed alone by the men. They have no personal property, but all things are in common. They all live together without a king and without a govern- ment, and every one is his own master. They take for wives whom they will, the son the mother, the brother the sister, or whomsoever they first meet, and in all this they have no rule. They also war wath each other, and without art or rule. And they eat one another, and those they slay are eaten, for human flesh is a common food. In the houses salted human flesh is hung up to dry. They live to be a hun- dred and fifty years old, and are seldom sick," In comparing the two accounts of the peculiarities of the natives, it will be noticed that there is no mention in the book of the Indians wearing feathers on different parts of their bodies. Otherwise there is so close a resemblance that it seems reasonable to infer that the wording of the inscription of the picture was derived in part at least from one of the editions of the book. The print possesses peculiar importance as an early — if not the earliest — picture of American Indians; it has unusual interest as a specimen of illus- tration applied to events of the day; and in its appearance, disappearance, reap- pearance, as well as in the names of book collectors associated with it, bears eloquent testimony to the fact that romance has not entirely deserted the path of the book or print collector. LIBRARY IWIVERSTTY OF CATJFORNIA SANTA BARBARA p ^^'^^^iW^^^^ 1"^ ^i A^ —^^ hT ^^^ i ^ ^^S3^ « •\Mm ^^3 5 ^ 1 31 ^Sii ^/C#^ 1 ///Jt^vvC^ -1 113 ^==^=%pf;^^^^ = ^ -^ i^ ^^^5^^^^^' ^ •§ "^^ \^3^^>o^\ / ^^^MiliLu^ij^^P^^^''-z:^iu^Ji^ SI ^ K\f^ E^ ¥^^^^ 3^\\ ^'^^^ V^.V/lfeJ^ ^nNHk xn^ 5^ \uS& ^¥1^ vvJtM^ ^ Pul 1 l)4lg^«rmfcbam.pfr fwwm w5 m4rtri4m wciug mit fc^ctn bcbech* 2lucb b4bm *Orin66im6twvc(^aUb»n&atvn^funQt^ o cS^ o a ^ I I 1'4 I II %^ s#^ »i«<>iifcmOT»n«mbonm.&uIrtitfmbaJf«n4t'^bttbr(*.bMttnw«rtf«(!4U»«nl«A.«b«ub«t. wcficl>rm\)nbbmflvi6c&clg«flmn,«£«b«ertttcbrty«m4n«nfebt«ruii»afm6<«lUWnflj«n4MU ltmri«ii«ttfcbrty{>. 6riftiotcn»^«l*Wga» tliintc^imcnt* UC SOUTHERN REGIONAL LIBRARY FACil ll> AA 000 918 541 4 ^t^n THE LIBRARY UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA Santa Barbara Goleta, California THIS BOOK IS DUE ON THE LAST DATE STAMPED BELOW. AVAILABLF FOT? CIRCULATION AFTi DISPLAY PERIOD 20m-8,'60(B2594s4)476 PAM PHirr BINDER IIZIZ Syrocuse, N. Y. '^—, Stockton, Colif. v,iiai3yi& *