The Old Print Shop

Puertas de Monserrate. Isla de Cuba.

  • ARTIST: Frederico Mialhe

  • PUBLISHER: Published by Bernardo May & Co., Berlin and Havana.

  • MEDIUM: Chromolithograph,

    DATE: c. 1853.

  • EDITION SIZE: Image size 7 1/2 x 10 1/4" (185 x 260 mm) including blue border.

  • DESCRIPTION: Plate 8 from "Album Pintoresco de la Isla de Cuba." Mialhe’s important Cuban views created “the image which the enlightened public of the nineteenth century had of Cuba,” writes Cueto. In addition to highly detailed city views, Isla de Cuba includes scenes depicting everyday Cuban life, such as tobacco cultivation, dancing, vending, even a cockfight. Bernardo May, the publisher of this issue, was a Havana merchant who pirated Mialhe’s work by sending the artist’s images to Berlin to be lithographed. Then May sold the lithographs in Cuba at prices below Mialhe’s own.

  • ADDITIONAL INFO:

  • CONDITION: Good condition and color, minor foxing and a handling crease in lower.

  • REFERENCE: Sabin 17748. Cueto, Mialhe's Colonial Cuba.