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Full-Color Plate Images of African Wildlife from the Personal Library of Peter Hathaway Capstick

Currency:USD Category:Collectibles / Historical Memorabilia Start Price:2,300.00 USD Estimated At:11,500.00 USD
Full-Color Plate Images of African Wildlife from the Personal Library of Peter Hathaway Capstick
Generously donated by FIONA CAPSTICK: The first and, by now, exceptionally rare color-plate book on Southern Africa was Samuel Daniell’s “African Scenery and Animals”, published between 1804 and 1805 in Atlas folio format and in a very modest print run. The album was reissued in 1831 in what became an even scarcer edition. This high quality, exact facsimile reproduction, numbering only 550 books worldwide, is the first and only such reprint in the last 184 years. It was published in 1976 in Cape Town, based on one complete copy in the South African Library in Cape Town. The book comprises two sets of illustrations, thirty in all, drawn and engraved by Daniell and combined into one volume. The leather spine and corners are French sheepskin with gilt details on the spine and gilt edging to the corners. The logo of the publisher, A.A. Balkema of Cape Town and Rotterdam, appears in gilt on the front board, the hand-marbled boards being from Belgium. This is copy number 393 and is duly signed and authenticated as such by Frank Bradlow, the internationally recognized Africana specialist who wrote the comprehensive introduction to this edition. This copy is in impeccable condition and contains the calligraphy book plate of Peter Hathaway Capstick. Samuel Daniell was an English water-color artist from Surrey. This historic book contains his water colors pertaining to two expeditions he undertook between 1800 and 1802 when he travelled to the east of the Cape Colony and then to the far north, to what is today Botswana, before returning to Cape Town. The aquatint process was used for the original illustrations, the printed plates then being hand-colored in their entirety. This book appeared during the golden age of English water-colorists. The paintings are of great historic importance concerning ethnographic studies, wildlife and countryside as they provide some of the earliest glimpses of South Africa. One of the illustrations depicts the quagga, drawn from life by Daniell who saw vast herds of this animal during the above-mentioned expedition. The quagga was shot to extinction in the wild by 1878, the last captive specimen dying in the Amsterdam Zoo in August 1883. Samuel Daniell died in Ceylon in December 1811. He was only 36 years old. The celebrated, exceedingly rare first edition and this modern exact facsimile ensure the survival of his legacy as one of the most noted early artists of African wildlife and habitat. Dallas Safari Club thanks Fiona Capstick for this 100% donation. Fiona Capstick, 011 2712 460 2788 , 212 Lawley Street, Waterkloof, Pretoria 0181, South Africa, ralli@mweb.co.za