John and Thomas Doughty (1793-1856)

The Cabinet of Natural History and American Rural Sports

Philadelphia: J. & T. Doughty, 1830-1834

3 volumes in 28 ORIGINAL PARTS, of 30 (11 x 9 inches and 12 4/8 x 10 inches). 3 engraved vignette title-pages, one for each volume, engraved portraits of Charles Wilson Peale and William Bartram, 49 engraved plates, 47 with original hand-colour (of a total of 56 plates) (lacking parts IX and X from Volume II, lacking plates from part I, and the Wild Swan from part VIII of volume I, some occasionally heavy browning and dampstaining). Original alternately ochre, beige, grey and blue printed paper wrappers (some heavy staining to about 3 parts, last part lower wrapper detached and frayed).

Provenance: with the contemporary alternately pencilled and ink ownership inscription of George Cadwallader, 299 Chestnut Street, [?Philadelphia].

EXCEPTIONALLY RARE IN THE ORIGINAL MONTHLY PARTS, in any condition, only one other example in original parts has been offered at auction, that we can find: Sotheby's, Sporting Books from the Collection of the late Lindley Eberstadt, May 22nd, 1985.

"The Doughtys' "Cabinet" is an odd amalgam of natural history, sporting accounts, travel narratives, and practical advice for the countryman. This was the first major book issued in the United States to be illustrated with hand-coloured lithographic plates, preceded only by three minor books in the 1820s. It marks the beginning of the dominance of lithography in book illustration, although the process had been commercially viable in America for a decade" (Reese).  

Thomas Doughty, one of America's greatest landscape painters "apparently taught himself how to paint, and around 1816 he painted his first landscapes. It was also at this time that he listed his occupation as "painter" in the Philadelphia register, among the first American artists to do so. He was an avid hunter and fisherman whose intense love of nature inspired him to capture the serenity and joy he experienced in the wooded hills and along the quiet streams of the Northeast" (Britt Steen Zuñiga for DNB). Bennett, page 35; Henderson, page 37;Howes D433; Reese, American Color Plate Books 12