The Inhabitants of California in their Respective Dresses.

• Price: $120.00
  

  SKU: 103177

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• PUBLISHER: London: Printed for T. Woodward, C. Davis, J. Wren, J. Shuckburgh, J. Whiston, and others

• MEDIUM: Engraving,

  DATE: 1744

• EDITION SIZE: Paper size 16 x 9 3/4" ( 41 x 24.7 cm)

• DESCRIPTION: This engraving, titled The Inhabitants of California in their Respective Dresses, appeared in the 1744 edition of John Harris’s monumental Navigantium atque Itinerantium Bibliotheca, a vast compilation of over six hundred voyages and travels encompassing the discoveries and explorations of Europe, Asia, Africa, and the Americas. The image reflects 18th-century European perceptions of the peoples inhabiting the Pacific coast of North America—then still a largely mysterious and scarcely charted region. Depicted are figures identified as “Californians,” dressed in fanciful native attire and posed in a landscape setting meant to convey the exoticism of the region. Like many ethnographic plates of the period, the image blends reports from early explorers with artistic invention, incorporating attributes and poses borrowed from earlier sources such as Theodor de Bry’s engravings and the Jesuit travel accounts. Issued as one of the illustrative “cuts” accompanying the narrative text, the plate exemplifies the mid-18th-century fascination with global exploration and the Enlightenment drive to catalogue the customs, costumes, and physiognomies of the world’s peoples.

• ADDITIONAL INFO: This piece is in a 11 x 17 inch archival mylar for handling.

• CONDITION: Good condition, mild toning.

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• CATEGORIES: 18th-19th Century Subjects , Western & Indian , Other