WALDECK, Jean Frédéric Maximilien, comte de (1766-1875). Voyage Pittoresque et Archéologique dans la Province d'Yucatan (Amerique Centrale), Pendant les années 1834 et 1836. Paris: Firmin Didot frères for Bellizard Dufour et Co., 1838.

First edition, deluxe issue, of an important and notorious early work on the Yucatan. Jean Frédéric Waldeck was an eccentric adventurer, artist, and pornographer who claimed a variety of nationalities throughout his life; he allegedly had traveled extensively in South Africa and participated in Napoleon's Egyptian campaign. The art of Mesoamerica first captured his imagination when he was hired to prepare engravings for the English translation of Antonio del Rio's report on Palenque, a pre-Classic Mayan city. His engravings were beautiful and vivid, adding details not in the originals in order to suggest a connection between Egypt and the Maya.

In 1825 Waldeck traveled to the Yucatan under the guise of working for a British mining company and began to explore its ancient cities, living for a time in the ruins of Palenque. Mexico, newly independent from Spain, was catching the eyes of other colonial powers as well as anthropologists looking for new material to mine. It was not long before Waldeck was hired by Lord Kingsborough to make drawings of Uxmal, which he executed with his usual level of fantasy. He interpreted what he saw in Mexico in the shadow of the ancient Mediterranean world, famously seeing elephant heads among the Mayan glyphs (now understood to be representations of the big-nosed Mayan deity Chac). He dedicated the resulting publication to Kingsborough, launched himself into fame and membership in the American Antiquarian Society, and inspired over a century of conspiracy theories about the origins of Mesoamerican civilizations.

The work was issued in two forms, with the plates colored or uncolored. The former, as here, is the deluxe issue and, according to Brunet, cost 100 francs as opposed to 75 for the uncolored issue. Brunet V:1402; BAL RIBA 3563; Palau 373688; Sabin 100994. See also R. Tripp Evans, Romancing the Maya: Mexican Antiquity in the American Imagination, 1820-1915 (2004).

Loose folio sheets (598 x 427mm). Half title and title page with engraved vignette; engraved map hand-colored in outline, 21 plates on 20 sheets including 3 double-page and 10 chromolithographs (title chipped with some repairs at edges, some light spotting and toning throughout, with a few plates quite toned, slight chipping at edges). Modern portfolio with ties, reusing original wrappers (chipped at corners and worn). Provenance: American Antiquarian Society (blindstamp with "Sold by AAS" stamped on reverse).