Phillips, John:

$27,500 · Offered by William Reese Company

MEXICO ILLUSTRATED, WITH DESCRIPTIVE LETTER-PRESS, IN ENGLISH AND SPANISH. A beautiful copy, here with lovely hand-coloring, of this fine and rare series of views, published almost concurrently with the end of the Mexican-American War.The work was clearly published both as a purely topographical work of the highest quality and as an attempt to capitalize on the interest that the war had generated in England as well as the United States. The plates derive from a fascinating number of sources, ranging from straight-forward eyewitness records by both John Phillips and Alfred Rider, to an adaptation of a 17th-century engraving first published by Arnoldus Montanus, to a number of views taken from the earlier work of Carl Nebel and Pedro Gualdi. The full details can be read in Roberto Mayer's article in the ANNALES DEL INSTITUTO DE INVESTIGACIONES ESTETICAS.Of the group, a handful of plates display a direct connection to the War: the view of Vera Cruz (after an original painting by Rider) is accompanied by text which refers to Gen. Scott's siege and bombardment of the city (March 7 to 29, 1847); the view of Rio Frio includes the Mexican army in line of march; the plate of Chapultepec, which shows a column of troops and is accompanied by text which describes both the "brave defense" of the Mexican army and "irresistible gallantry of the American troops;" and the final plate of Matamoros includes a number of vessels flying the United States flag along with a note in the accompanying

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