Neun's RARE VENEZUELAN VIEWS FROM THE LIBRARY OF JACQUES LEVY

RARE VENEZUELAN VIEWS FROM THE LIBRARY OF JACQUES LEVY NEUN, Henrique; after Ramón Bolet. Album de Carácas y Venezuela. . . Primer tomo. Caracas: La Sociedad, 1877–1878. Here is what AI says it’s worth: $16,380. Cost: Jacques Levy Sale (Sotheby’s New York, 20 April 2012, lot 253 - 17,500. Oblong quarto (9” x 12 ¾”, 229mm x 323mm): with a tinted lithographed title-page and 40 tinted lithographed plates, all within an orange lithographed border. Bound in the publisher’s teal boards (re-)backed in russet cloth, with the title embossed gilt to the front board and the publisher and binder gilt to the back board, both within gilt scrollwork frames. Bumped and soiled (recently re-backed and conserved by Brockman; full report available). The title-page a little soiled, with some foxing at the rear end-papers. Mild tanning, with the odd spot of soiling or thumbing. Binder’s ticket of Carlos Hennig to the front paste-down. The genre of city views blossomed in the late XVIc and throughout the XVIIc and beyond; civic pride is nothing new, but it captivated the European imagination to the extent that most major cities have at least one series of views. For American, cities, however, the trend was too early. William Birch’s early XIXc views of Philadelphia and Fay & Dakin’s views of New York in the 1830’s are exceptions to prove the rule. South America’s political upheavals as it shook off colonial rule provided an opportunity to display newly founded or remade cities as a sign of autonomous rule. In Venezuela, the Federal War 1859–1863, a civil war with Antonio Guzmán Blanco and José Antonio Páez as major figures of the Federalist and Conservative parties, was particularly devastating; some 10% of the population died. Guzmán rose in power in the 1870’s, essentially ruling as a dictator, and rebuilt Caracas to reflect not only his own great ambitions but his vision for Venezuela on the world stage. Ramón Bolet Peraza introduced chromolithography — developed in Germany — to Venezuela, allowing the nation to represent itself. The present work, published by Henrique Neun of the lithography firm “La Sociedad,” contains forty tinted lithographs — some a single color, some a blue-to-orange array — depicting monuments to Bolivar, civic buildings, churches, even a restaurant. The work (bibliographers fail to note that this is the primer tomo, implying at least a (planned) second volume; Eberstadt in 1953 records a 38-plate volume dated 1898, but this could well be an error) is extremely rare; the Museo del Libro Venezolano describes an example — presumably in the Biblioteca nacional de Venezuela, but apparently unrecorded — and the British Library (Maps 2.b.4.) has an example with 39 plates. At auction, the work has come up three times: the present volume in and a volume with printed-gilt borders (Kiefer 2017, unsold) that was bought and eventually sold at the Bobbins sale at Christie’s New York (16 June 2023). The present volume from the library of Jacques Levy (Sotheby’s New York, 20 April 2012, lot 253). Levy’s collection was broad, but had a special strength in illustrated books such as this.

Estimate:$25,000

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