PERGER, Anton, Ritter von (1809-1876). "Vor-geschichtliche Steinbauten" [An album of 36 watercolors of megaliths. [Vienna,] 1867.

Remarkable album of expressive watercolors of megaliths around the world, from Wales to Persia. The illustrations are grouped in sections by types, which were just being developed in the 19th-century. The first general book in English on these prehistoric structures did not appear until 1872, James Fergusson’s Rude Stone Monuments in all Counties: their Age and Use. This compilation is dated the same year as Fergusson's monograph on Stonehenge. The album gives precedence to British monuments, but also includes the standing stones at Carnac and other locations in France, gigantic stone formations at Asby and Ulrika in Sweden, as well as Szklarska-Poreba (then Schreiberau), the "Hat and Bread" stone in Przesieka (then Hain), the ‘Stone Cup’ of Hirsberg, the ‘Stone Door’ at the summit of the Tumpsahütte, as well as a stone circle known as Kalah i Darab in Persia.

The album is signed and dated by the Austrian painter and engraver Anton Ritter von Perger, a professor of Anatomy at the Academy of Fine Arts in Vienna and later curator of the Imperial Prints and Drawings collection. The study and depiction of prehistoric monuments was becoming fashionable in this period, and inspired the work of many artists including Turner, Constable, and Caspar David Friedrich.

Oblong folio (314 x 125mm). Manuscript title page, and manuscript section titles. 36 watercolors on 35 sheets, manuscript captions in French, German, and/or English on mount or foot of most drawings. Contemporary half vellum and marbled boards.