Beschreibung:

Pencil Sketches of Colorado Alfred Mathews, 1866 MATHEWS, Alfred E. (1831-1874). Pencil Sketches of Colorado, its Cities, Principal Towns and Mountain Scenery. New York, 1866. First edition of this magnificent series of documentary views. "Mathews’ spectacular lithographs of Colorado are among the most lavish found in western view books. They are mainly devoted to mining towns and scenes in the Rockies. The artist came to Colorado in 1865, having honed his illustrative skills while a Union soldier during the Civil War ... The color plates, printed by Julius Bien in New York, make this a beautiful and important work" (Best of the West). Mathews' aims in creating this book are two-fold, to convey some "idea of the beauty and grandeur of the natural scenery in the mountains," and "to represent that portion of the country to which interest is attached on account of the rich gold and silver mines." Mathews' level of documentary precision, in terms of the machinery, landscape and town life, has been highly commended. According to Streeter, "apparently contemporary viewers could identify in the street views the rigs of various townspeople." Deák 808; Bennett, p. 72; Best of the West 169; Creating America 73; Graff 2709; Howes M-413 ("c"); Reps 30 (identifying 16 of the lithographs as urban views); Streeter sale 2171. Oblong folio (336 x 482 mm). 36 scenes on 23 color-tinted lithographed plates by J. Bien (some finger-soiling, mild spotting mostly to first and last few plates and a bit heavier on "F Street, Denver," frontispiece with a marginal taped tear, small spot in sky of above "Central City, looking up Spring Gulch," "Twin Lakes" view with margin extended on bottom edge). 20th century quarter calf to style, with original gilt-stamped titling piece affixed to front cover (spine sunned). Provenance: Matthew Bishop (ownership inscription, possibly his pencil note updating the population data for Denver as of 1882).