Michaud & Thomas, c.1850

First Mexican Color Plate Book
Michaud & Thomas, c.1850
MICHAUD, Julio (1807-1876), and THOMAS, Jean-Baptiste. Album pintoresco de la República Mexicana. Mexico City: Michaud y Thomas, [c.1850].

First major color plate book produced in Mexico, featuring traditional costumes, Mexico City views, and scenes from the Mexican-American War. The publisher, Julio Michaud, was born in Paris and relocated to Mexico, where he worked as a publisher and bookseller. His business partner, Jean-Baptiste Thomas, was also a French expatriate. Michaud was a pioneer photographer and published, with Désiré Charnay, the Album fotográfico Mexicano (1858). Copies of the Album pintoresco in libraries frequently vary in content and number of plates, from 39 to as many as 49 plates (the Bancroft Library copy). The present copy features eleven plates by Pierre Frédéric Lehnert (b. 1811) showing people in traditional costumes, all hand-colored with gum Arabic highlights; four tinted plates of Mexico City views by Urbano López; 19 tinted plates of views and interiors, mostly of and around Mexico City, by López or Lehnert; four tinted plates by Chénot, each with four small vignettes showing views of various Mexican towns; and five plates by Lehnert or F. Bastin depicting scenes from the Mexican-American War. Though the album is undated, battle scenes of the Mexican-American War (1846-47) and the equestrian statue of Carlos IV in the courtyard of the university, from which it was removed in 1852, suggest a publication date of around 1850. Mathes, Mexico on Stone 56; Palau y Dulcet 5417.

Oblong folio (457 x 328mm). Lithographic title page, 43 lithographic plates (most plates spotted and soiled, usually around margins not affecting images; one plate, “Paseo de Las Vigas, Mexico,” heavily spotted and browned; large closed tear on title, and closed marginal tears on six plates, extending into image on one plate). Publisher’s printed boards, with remnants of original printed wrappers bound in, black cloth spine (heavily soiled and worn and case now detached from text block; Zambrano library label on back pastedown). Provenance: "Alexander Christie, Cocolapan Orizava Mexico, August 15th 1861" (inscription of title page).