GENERAL SCOTT'S ENTRANCE INTO MEXICO. FROM THE ALBUM: THE WAR BETWEEN THE UNITED STATES AND MEXICO
New York; Philadelphia: D. Appleton; George S. Appleton, 1851. Hand colored print (1), matted and framed with UV conservation glass. Item #103163
Hand-colored lithograph and elaborated by Adolphe Jean-Baptiste Bayot (b. France 1810-1866) based on paintings by Carl Nebel (b. Germany 1805-1855). Heightened with gum arabic by Adolphe Jean-Baptiste Bayot after Carl Nebel): "Nebel's version of Scott's entrance sticks closer to the truth and is packed with psychological drama. There is no doubt here that the war is still on. Loaded cannons are posted to sweep the streets, while a body of dragoons in the foreground gathers tensely with drawn sabers near General Scott and his staff. In a particularly effective narrative detail, one of the dragoon officers, on a white horse in the center foreground, glares at a lepero on the left who is preparing to throw a stone. From the street or from doorways and partially closed windows, other citizens watch with fear, curiosity, apprehension, indignation, and in the case of the lepero with the stone and the armed men on the roof, open hostility, an allusion to the violence that broke out shortly thereafter." In the introduction to the 1994 TSHA reprint of the Kendall-Nebel portfolio (pp. xxiv), Tyler comments: "Nebel's picture of the grand plaza of Mexico, with the cathedral in the center and the National Palace at the right, is almost identical to his earlier print" [in Voyage Pittoresque; see Item 435 herein]. References: Bennett, American-Nineteenth Century Color Plate Books, p. 65: "The very best American battle scenes in existence." Christensen, The U.S.-Mexican War, p. 181. Garrett & Goodwin, The Mexican-American War of 1846-1848, p. 31. Haferkorn, p. 47. Palau 188868. Peters, America on Stone, p. 295. Raines, p. 132: A great work." Sabin 37362. Sandweiss, Stewart & Huseman, Eyewitness to War: Prints and Daguerreotypes of the Mexican War, 1846-1848, p. 36: "The eyewitness prints that must be compared against all others are those produced under the direction of George Wilkins Kendall for his book The War Between the United States and Mexico Illustrated." Tyler, The Mexican War, a Lithographic Record, p. 11: "Magnificently produced portfolio by…the first modern war correspondent"; p. 18: "Of all the Mexican War lithographs, perhaps the dozen by Kendall and Nebel are the most popular." Tyler, Prints of the American West, p. 78.
Price: $1,800.00