Album Pintoresco de la Isla de Cuba

Berlin: Oilprinting Storch & Kramer (for) B. May y Ca., 1855. One of two pirated editions printed in Germany in the 1850's, a marvelous album of views based on the work of Cuba's master lithographer Frederic Mialhe depicted in his Viaje Pintoresco al Rededor de la Isla de Cuba (Havana, 1847-1848); this edition with captions in Spanish only and without vignettes on the maps (the other pirated edition was printed in either Berlin or Hamburg, with tinted lithographs instead of the color lithographed plates, as here, the captions were in Spanish, English and German, and a series of vignettes were printed around the border of the two maps); the lithographs in this issue are much more detailed than in the other pirated edition.

Perhaps the finest pictorial record of daily life in Cuba in the 19th century, with port and city views of Havana, countryside scenes, a bullfight and a cockfight. This copy with all plates fully and beautifully color lithographed. Sabin 17748 (for the other pirated edition which had only 26 plates). Though OCLC locates an equal number of the two editions, this colored issue seems to be less common in trade. For an account of Mialhe's original edition, which was printed in Cuba, and the two German piracies, see Emilio Cueto's Mialhe's Colonial Cuba (Miami, 1994), pp. 73-77.

Oblong 4to. 27 color lithographed plates and color & gold lithographed illustrated title leaf [printed rectos only], with tissue guards, 2 folding maps. With their original tissue guards (some ruffled). Two folding maps. Original elaborate red velvet binding titled and ornamented in gold, expertly rebacked. Possibly a presentation binding.