[GILBERT ISLANDS] Illustrated Catalogue of Ethnographical Specimens.

A$500 · Offered by Douglas Stewart Fine Books

Issued by W.O. Oldman, 77, Brixton Hill, London, S.W. September 1905. No. 30 . Octavo, original printed wrappers (detached), pp 2 (brief descriptions of 37 items), followed by 2 tipped-in silver gelatin photographs, illustrating most items. Scarce original sales catalogue of the renowned early ethnographic dealer W.O. Oldman. Includes 11 artefacts from the Gilbert Islands, among them a rare full suit of coconut-fibre and stingray-skin armour; and 26 items of Chinese weaponry (swords, cross-bows, arrows, quiver etc.). William Ockelford Oldman was a British collector and dealer of ethnographic art and European arms and armour. His business W.O. Oldman, Ethnographical Specimens, London was mostly active between the late 1890s and 1913. A large number of artefacts sold by Oldman now reside in some of the world s most important ethnographic collections, and his illustrated sales catalogues, issued between 1901 and 1913, remain significant works of reference. Oldman s private collection of Oceanic artefacts was sold to the New Zealand Government in 1948 and is now administered by Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa.

• Binding: Hardcover

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