Books and Manuscripts

Heine, William
Graphic Scenes in the Japan Expedition
New York: G.P. Putnam & Company, 1856. First edition. Folio. Illustrated with 10 lithographic prints, including one tinted portrait of Commodore Perry on mounted india paper (from a daguerreotype by P. Haas), and nine hand-finished views by Heine (two chromolithograph and seven printed in two colors on mounted india paper); with 12 letterpress text leaves; printed by Sarony & Co. Modern three-quarter purple morocco over period purple cloth-covered boards, boards rubbed, bottom front board corner bumped; yellow endpapers; scattered pale spotting to plates. Bennett, p. 53; McGrath, American Color Plate Books 123

An important work recording Commodore Perry's expedition to Japan. William Heine was the official artist on Commodore Matthew C. Perry's expedition to Japan in 1853-54. On returning to the United States he produced several series of prints commemorating the trip. A group of six elephant-folio prints appeared in 1855, and the following year the present volume was issued with different images and with explanatory text. Both projects employed the New York lithographic firm of Sarony, among the best lithographers in the United States at that time. "As artistic productions, the pictures speak for themselves...none superior to them have been executed in the United States, and they have no cause to shun comparison with some of the best productions of Europe…" (from the Introduction). Bennett describes the plates as "many times finer than those in the regular account of the Perry expedition." His remarks on the work's great rarity are confirmed by its absence from both of Cordier's Japanese bibliographies.