[Mexican Lithography]:

$19,500 · Offered by William Reese Company · No longer available

LA ORQUESTA. A wonderful and extensive run of this 19th-century Mexican periodical, of great interest for its vast number of lithographic political cartoons. The more than 500 lithographic plates in this run of LA ORQUESTA, all of which belong to the third series and most of which were executed by master draftsmen Constantino Escalante, Vicente Riva Palacio, and Hesiquio Iriarte, represent some of the most exquisite early specimens of Mexico's nationalistic print-making art, a tradition that began with illustrations in a handful of liberal periodicals such as LA ORQUESTA, and later blossomed to influence and encompass such prolific talents as Jose Guadalupe Posada and Jose Clemente Orozco.Popular lithography in 19th-century Mexico reached its zenith with the "caricaturas," or political caricatures, such as those contained in LA ORQUESTA. The narrative style of the cartoons combined with biting political satire and the use of decidedly Mexican emblematic metaphors evoke the peculiar Mexican "caricatura" style. Although the lithographs reveal hints of French influence in matters of decorations, they reflect more the genesis of Mexico's own satiric genre in lithography. This view is supported by Joyce Waddell Bailey, an authority on Mexican graphic art: "Outside of [a few] circumstantial affinities to the tradition of French magazines of caricature, we find little influence of a specific nature in the prints. Rather, the Mexican lithographs show highly original themes, and style

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