William Reese Company

With Plates of Dakota Life

THE AMERICAN ABORIGINAL PORTFOLIO.

Eastman, Mary H.:

Philadelphia: Lippincott Grambo & Co., [1853]. 84pp. plus twenty-six plates after Seth Eastman (including engraved titlepage). Quarto. Original blue cloth, richly gilt, expertly rebacked with original gilt backstrip laid down, a.e.g. Boards stained and soiled, front hinge neatly repaired. Light tanning and foxing. Good plus. Item #WRCAM58595

A classic illustrated work on Native Americans. The handsome engraved plates are after paintings of Sioux life by the author's husband, Seth Eastman, an accomplished artist and topographical draftsman. Mary Henderson Eastman (1818-1887), the daughter of a Virginia physician, married Seth Eastman in 1835. In 1841 she accompanied her husband to his new post as commander of Fort Snelling in modern Minnesota, where she learned the Sioux language and studied their culture. The plates in this work and Eastman's descriptions are drawn from her firsthand experience and research living on the frontier. The illustrations consist of handsome depictions of Dakota and Lakota people performing various rituals and activities such as burials, administering medicine, dancing, travelling, fishing, harvesting rice, spearing muskrats, dressing a buffalo skin, and much more. HOWES E17, "aa." WAGNER-CAMP 222c. SIEBERT SALE 865. RADER 1269. SABIN 21682. FIELD 477 (note). REESE, BEST OF THE WEST 122 (note).

Price: $1,750.00