Emeric Essex Vidal — Picturesque Illustrations of Buenos Ayres and Monte Video, Consisting of Twenty-four Views: Accompanied with Descriptions of the Scenery, and of the Costumes, Manners, &c. Of the Inhabitants of Those Cities and Their Environs.

Picturesque Illustrations of Buenos Ayres and Monte Video, Consisting of Twenty-four Views: Accompanied with Descriptions of the Scenery, and of the Costumes, Manners, &c. Of the Inhabitants of Those Cities and Their Environs.

Large 4to., (13 x 10 4/8 inches). 24 hand-colored aquatints by T. Sutherland, G. Maile and J. Bluck, after Vidal, including 4 double-page (creased, linen-backed and mounted on guards) (some browning, spotting and a few pale stains). Half red morocco gilt by Zaehnsdorf, all edges gilt (extremities scuffed, hinges starting). Provenance: Bookplate of Biblioteca de la sociedad Anonima Ernesto Tornquist & Cia Buenos Aires on the front paste-down. "THE ONLY NOTABLE COLOUR PLATE BOOK IN ENGLISH DEALING WITH THE ARGENTINE" (Tooley) First edition, originally issued in six monthly parts on both large paper and ordinary (as here). "The important events of which the Spanish colonies in South America have of late yesars been the theatre, and the successful struggle for independence which they are still maintaining against the mother country, have powerfully attracted the attention of the whole civilized world. The political consequence of Buenos Ayres as the capital and centre of one of the newly established republics, and its importance on a commercial point of view, would render it an object of peculiar interest to the first mercantile nation in the world, even without its attempted reduction during the late war by the British arms. Leaving, however, those more abstruse topics to the professed historian and political economist, the author of this work contented himself with sketching, originally without any view to publication, some of the characteristic features presented by the cities of Buenos Ayres and Monte Video, and such peculiarities in the habirts, manners, and customs of the people as appeared to him most striking during a residence of three years in the country" (Introduction). Abbey 698; Colas 3000; Gordon-Brown, p.123; Martin Hardie, pp.107 & 312; Prideaux pp.355 & 375; Sabin 99460; Tooley (1954) 495. Purchased at Sotheby's in 1996.

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