Beschreibung:

KINGSBOROUGH, Edward King, Viscount (1795-1837). Antiquities of Mexico: comprising facsimiles of ancient Mexican paintings and hieroglyphics... together with the monuments of New Spain, by M. Dupaix... [ the drawings on stone by A. Aglio. ] London: [vols. I-VII], 1830, and Henry G. Bohn [vols. VIII-IX], 1848.
KINGSBOROUGH, Edward King, Viscount (1795-1837). Antiquities of Mexico: comprising facsimiles of ancient Mexican paintings and hieroglyphics... together with the monuments of New Spain, by M. Dupaix... [ the drawings on stone by A. Aglio. ] London: [vols. I-VII], 1830, and Henry G. Bohn [vols. VIII-IX], 1848. 9 volumes, 2 o (396 x 340 mm). 741 plates (in volumes I-IV), mostly by Augustine Aglio, comprising 587 FINELY HAND-COLORED LITHOGRAPHS, 154 uncolored lithographs including 127 chalk lithographs on mounted India paper, 13 folding plates and 2 folding tables in text volumes V and VI, with the 60-page section for the projected volume X bound in at end of volume IX. (Some occasional light staining). 19th-century red morocco gilt wide gilt roll-tooled border around a central coat-of-arms, gilt edges (some light rubbing a few scuff marks or scratches). Provenance : unidentified gilt coat-of-arms on covers of volumes I-VII. FIRST EDITION OF THE COLORED ISSUE OF THE GREATEST ILLUSTRATED WORK ON MEXICAN ANTIQUITIES. The story of Kingsborough's fateful engouement for Mexican manuscripts is well known: during his studies at Oxford he became fascinated by one of the Bodleian's manuscripts -- the very one described by Samuel Purchas in 1626 (in Purchas his Pilgrimes, vol. III) -- and decided to devote himself to the study of Central American manuscripts and artifacts. With the support of Sir Thomas Phillipps, many of whose manuscripts are described in the Antiquities , he employed the Italian painter Agustine Aglio to scour Europe's greatest libraries and private collections for Mexican manuscripts, which Aglio sketched and later lithographed for publication. Besides Aglio's reproductions of manuscripts in the Bodleian, the Vatican Library, the Borgian Museum, the Imperial Library of Vienna, the Library of the Institute at Bologna, and the royal libraries of Berlin, Dresden, and Budapest, the work includes Dupaix's Monuments of New Spain, taken from Castaneda's original drawings, and descriptions of sculptures and artifacts from several private collections. The text, with sections in Spanish, English, French and Italian, includes Sahagun's Historia General de la Nueva Espana and the chronicles of Tezozomoc and Ixtlilxochitl. The immense project cost Kingsborough 32,000 and his life: in 1837 he died of typhus contracted in prison in Dublin, a few days after being arrested for a debt to a paper manufacturer. His father the Earl of Kingston died a few month later; Kingsborough would have stood to inherit an annual estate of 40,000. This is the EARLIEST KNOWN ISSUE, dated 1830 and without any publisher on the title-pages of volumes I-VII. As stated on the title of volumes I-VII, the work was intended to contain seven volumes; the last two volumes were published by Bohn as a supplement based on the author's notes. Hoping to help the sale, Aglio transferred the stock of all seven volumes to Havell and Colnaghi in 1831, who printed new title-pages with their address and the current date. Brunet III, 663; Lipperheide Md11; Palau 128006; Sabin 37800. (9)