Vischer, Edward:

$27,500 · Offered by William Reese Company · No longer available

VISCHER'S PICTORIAL OF CALIFORNIA LANDSCAPE, TREES AND FOREST SCENES. GRAND FEATURES OF CALIFORNIA SCENERY, LIFE, TRAFFIC AND CUSTOMS. A singular work of California art and iconography, Vischer's Pictorial of California Landscape... stands alone in its depiction of the state in the second half of the 19th century. Called by Weber "preeminently the greatest artist in the early history of our state," Vischer created dozens of drawings of California scenes and scenery from on-the-spot observations, and reproduced them in albumen photographs. "The drawings, executed in pencil and wash, cover a wide range of subjects, including a rare commemoration of the brief introduction of camels to California. Of special importance are the drawings of the missions which interested Vischer throughout his life" - Howell.Cowan notes that copies of Vischer's work often vary in the number of plates, as we have also discovered from experience, though it appears that the complete complement for this deluxe edition in gilt green morocco is 170, as here. In this copy, the first section ("Californian Landscape") features sixty photographs split into five sets of twelve, including scenes in forests and mining camps, the Sierra Nevada, Lake Tahoe, Truckee, Santa Barbara, Santa Cruz, several California missions (of great interest to Vischer), Donner Lake, the San Bernardino mountains, a few depictions of camels (a military experiment of the 1850s and 60s), and more. This is followed by a section of twenty

Found via Rare Books Intel, a search across rare-book dealers, auction houses and marketplaces worldwide.