Western Art News
The Voyage
First-edition book with Karl Bodmer images sells for $187,500
at Christie’s fine books and manuscripts sale.
A
book written by German explorer and
naturalist Prince Alexander Philipp
Maximilian zu Wied-Neuwied and
illustrated by artist-explorer Karl Bodmer sold
at auction for $187,500, surpassing its high
estimate of $150,000. The sale was part of theJune 21 Christie’s sale New York Summa de
Arithmetica: The Birth of Modern Business and
the Spring Fine Books and Manuscripts
Including Americana, which realized nearly
$4.7 million in total sales.
The book, a French first edition, is titledVoyage dans l’intérieur de l’Amérique du
Nord, or Travels in the Interior of North
America. Bodmer was hired by the prince to
record his American expedition that began
in 1832. The trip took them to Indiana in the
fall of that year, after which the company
traveled down the Missouri River to New
Orleans. In 1933 they set off again, this time
up the Missouri River on a trip that eventually
ended in Montana, where Bodmer painted
the Mandan people. The prince later wrote
that “[Bodmer] is a lively, very good man and
companion, seems well educated, and is very
pleasant and very suitable for me; I am glad
I picked him. He makes no demands, and in
diligence he is never lacking.”
Bodmer’s artwork—and also the work of
George Catlin, who took similar expeditionary
trips into the West in the 1830s—is often cited
as some of the earliest Western art created.
Coupled with Prince Max’s description of the
journey, Travels in the Interior of the West is a
major milestone in Western art history.
The book in Christie’s sale included 24
hand-colored plates, including numerous
portraits of Native Americans. According to
Christie’s, the book’s principal creators knew
they had a treasure trove of information as
soon as their journey was concluded: “On
their return to Europe, ‘Maximillian finally
realized that, in his careful observations
and hundreds of exotic watercolors and
sketches Bodmer created, he possessed a
priceless cache of ethnographic and historical
information that would add much to the
scientific literature about North America, and
he set about producing one of the last of the
great illustrated books of the Enlightenment as
well as a thoroughly romantic document of his
North American expedition.’”Karl Bodmer (1809-1893) and Maximilian
zu Wied-Neuwied, Prince Alexander (1782-
1867), Voyage dans l’intérieur de l’Amérique du
Nord executé pendant les années 1832, 1833, et- First French edition with hand-colored plates.
Estimate: $100/150,000 SOLD: $187,500