History of the Indian Tribes of North America, with Biographical Sketches and Anecdotes of the Principal Chiefs. Embellished with One Hundred and Twenty Portraits from the Indian Gallery in the Department of War, at Washington

Philadelphia. Published by Rice, & A.N. Hart. 1855. 4to, 27.3x 18.5cm, in three volumes, plus 121 hand-coloured plates, (with tissue guards), after the original oil painting by Charles Bird King, in the original brown morocco publisher's bindings, raised black ruled bands, gilt titles in the panels, extra blind and black stamped decorations on the boards and in the panels, marbled endpapers, all edges gilt, a fine set the plates are strong clear strikes. Howes M129. Sabin 43411. Field 992. The royal octavo edition followed the great folio volumes of 1836-44. The brilliantly coloured plates, in excellent condition in this set, are fine examples of American lithography of the period. "Mostly the work of [Charles Bird] King, these are the most colourful portraits of Indians ever executed. Originally issued in twenty parts (in nineteen); but few sets were retained in that impractical form. The original oil paintings of which the plates were copies were all destroyed in the 1865 Smithsonian fire". (Howes). "The work is one of the most costly and important ever published on the American Indians. The plates are accurate portraits of celebrated chiefs, or of characteristic individuals of the race; and are coloured with care, to faithfully represent their features and costumers. (Field). It faithfully records the features and dress of celebrated American Indians who lived and died before the age of photography. Their tribes resided west of the Mississippi visited only by occasional trappers and the courageous Lewis and Clark, in a land considered distant and remote, 1830-1840's. The work is an eloquent record of Indian life while it was still largely untouched by white influence.