Complete bound Set of 73 Hawaiian Fish Chromolithographs, manuscript ink on blue book spine " Baldwin, A.H. 1904 Fish Paintings U.S. Bureau Fishes " and ink manuscript "A.H.Baldwin Feb 24, 1904" with hand drawn tropical fish sketch on front free endpaper.

Physical Description of Book and contents:
73 Hawaiian fish chromolithographs numbered as Roman numerals I through LXXIII and identified on each print as Bull.U.S.F.C. 1903, of which 51 are attributed to the artist A.H.Baldwin ad nat.del. Julius Bien & Co. lith N.Y. ; 12 are attributed to C.B.Hudson and 10 are attributed to Kako Morita; and 1 Bahamian fish chromolithograph by A.H. Baldwin, Pork Fish, Plate LIV, The Bahama Islands, A.Hoen & Co., Lith. for the Geographical Society of Baltimore now loose, formerly hand glued onto a paper stub of the book. The 73 Hawaiian fish chromolithographs are on print sheets bound on their short side into a book with blue fabric over boards. There is no title page or other printed matter. There is one front free endpaper. One front paper stub with old glue that matches the old glue strip on "Pork Fish", a smaller print removed and trimmed by the book's owner and identified as Pork Fish, A.H.Baldwin, ad nat. del., A. Hoen & Co. Lith, Geographical Society of Baltimore. Manuscript writing in blue ink on the spine of the book reads "Baldwin, A.H. 1904 Fish Paintings U.S. Bureau Fish...." Manuscript in black ink on the one front free endpaper reads "A.H.Baldwin Feb 24, 1904" below which is a hand drawn, swimming tropical fish. 1/

Condition: book - as found fair to good, blue cloth covers over boards, some wear and fading to fabric around edges and top and bottom of spine; text binding firm; inside book the bound contents partially released from inside back cover at top of spine

Condition: fish chromolithographs - as found, art very good to excellent condition, paper evenly and lightly toned, complete set of 73 Hawaiian fish chromolithographs and 1 The Bahama Islands fish chromolithograph Pork Fish, A.H. Baldwin ad nat. del.

Dimensions: Book: shy 12"x shy 9" x 11/16"

Dimensions: Full Page: 11 9/16" x 8 3/4"

Dimensions pasted in unrelated page at front:
10 3/16" x 6 21/32"

Front Free Endpaper (1), remnant

Description
This rare book of sparkling Hawaiian fish chromolithographs bears unique features. The blue book has many of the indicia of an artist or author's proof edition by lithographer Julius Bien & Co. as his firm's first printing of these 73 numbered chromolithographs in a uniquely large sheet size and oblong bound format. The artist's proof copy for fish paintings completed in Hawaii by 1903 would logically have been printed between 1903 and 1904 in preparation for printing the massive, 574- page complete Report of the U.S. Fish Commission for the year 1903, Government Printing Office, Washington, D.C. 1905 (issued 1906) of its expedition to Hawaii with artists and scientists. 2/ That report refers to the fish illustrations as paintings. Baldwin worked in oil colors. 3/The manuscript on the blue book's spine uses the term " Fish Paintings" as does the introduction to the 1903 Fish Commission Report. Julius Bien would have worked with the artist Baldwin's paintings as well to create the chromolithographs. The purpose of an artist's proof set was to confirm the artist accepted the color values interpreted from oil paint to chromolithography, itself a layered lithograph color process.

The 1905 government publication is in black cloth, with the 73 chromolithographs and 65 black and white prints bound on their long side within the book's covers. The government printing office 1905-06 edition is smaller in size and format than the 1904 dated blue book of 73 chromolithographs on offer. The 1905 edition chromolithograph fish plates only measure approximately 10 3/4" x 7 1/2". A third 1905 paper bound edition of fish lithographs was privately published by the Honolulu Rapid Transit & Land Co. (predecessor to the Honolulu Aquarium) with permission, with fewer prints. I understand 4/ that certain excerpts from government reports are published in blue cloth. The dating of the book on offer does not lend itself to falling in this category as the U.S. Fish Commission's report did not issue until 1906, two years after the manuscript 1904 date in the blue book.

The U.S. Fish Commission changed its name February 14, 1903 to the United States Bureau of Fisheries. Therefore, the manuscript labeling on the spine of our blue binding thus may in full read "U.S. Bureau Fisheries", although the abraded fabric at each end of the binding only permits a reading of "U.S. Bureau Fish.." 5/ Such historic events continue to confirm a late 1903 or early 1904 production of this blue book: the black ink manuscript on the inside end paper Feb 24, 1904 would suggest that the recipient received his book on that date, and next wrote "A.H. Baldwin" in the same black ink and next the tropical fish sketch. This sketch is an artistic flourish somewhat reminiscent of Thomas Bewick's signature end grain stamp of a feather and his thumb print.
These are the circumstantial facts. The book is signed and dated February 24 1904 in the name of artist A.H. Baldwin, and illustrated with a hand drawn tropical fish resembling Baldwin's painting subjects. The book's chromolithograph format is larger than that of the U.S. Fish Commission's Report of 1903, Vol. XXIII dated 1905 and issued 1905-06 for a purpose - to evaluate the print quality. It is customary for a book owner to sign and date a new book upon receipt, in this instance Feb. 24 1904. Scholars at the Smithsonian may locate examples of Julius Bien and artist A.H. Baldwin's hand writing to weigh whether the instant manuscript is a match. What can be said with certainty is that an early recipient of this very early publication of the Hawaiian fish chromolithographs made from A.H. Baldwin's fish paintings kept the book as an album, later adding to his book the A. Hoen & Co. chromolithograph of an A.H. Baldwin fish painting roughly cut from a printed report of a private June-July 1903 fish research expedition to The Bahamas sponsored by the Geographical Society of Baltimore which A.H. Baldwin as artist joined after his work in Hawaii permitted in 1903.6/ It is exciting to contemplate that this rare book passed through the artist A.H. Baldwin's hands and may well bear his imprint.

Notes:
1.Artist A.H. Baldwin (1865-1944) [Albertus Hutchinson)
For a photograph of Baldwin at work please see United States Fish Commission Laboratory at Woods Hole Station, Massachusetts - siris_arc_390351|Smithsonian Institution Archives. See Smithsonian, photograph of Baldwin at Woods Hole.

2. The U.S. Fish Commission Report of 1903 published by Government Printing Office, Washington, D.C. 1905 is titled and described on its title page in summary as:
Bulletin of the United States Fish Commission Vol. XXIII For 1903. Issued July 29, 1905. Washington: Government Printing Office. 1905.

The Aquatic Resources of the Hawaiian Islands. By David Starr Jordan and Barton Warren Evermann.

Part I. - The Shore Fishes.

List of Illustrations. Colored Plates. Plate I. - LXXIII. Accompanied also by black and white plates with Arabic numerals 1. - 65, figs. 1 and 2. Separate index for page illustrations.

Text. I. The Shore Fishes of the Hawaiian Islands, with a General Account of the Fish Fauna.

David Starr Jordan and Barton Warren Evermann.

Historical Review. and text with description of each fish named in index.

Color plates bound in at end of report following page 574, end of General Index.

3. Baldwin and Hudson were friends and artist colleagues who worked together between 1901 and 1902-03 on the U.S. Fish Commission Hawaii expeditions. Please see 01 Main MFR71(4).indd - mfr7141.pdf for a statement of how Baldwin worked as an artist, and high opinions of his art work painting Hawaiian fishes by the author of the scientific report accompanying the art work. 01 Main MFR71(4).indd - mfr7141.pdf

4. I have kindly been in conversation with Hawaii collector Stuart Yamada on this topic.

5. The Biblio web platform may require that this long thin photograph be shortened. The abraded cloth ends of the spine may be seen in full upon request to me for the complete photograph.

6. The Expedition to The Bahama Islands of the Geographical Society of Baltimore | Science