WARRE, After General Sir Henry James (1819-1898)

The Rocky Mountains from the Columbia River looking N.W.

[London]: Dickinson & Co., [1848]. Lithograph printed in colours, with additional hand-colouring and touches of gum arabic. Good condition. Sheet size: 13 x 20 1/2 inches.

An important image of the American west before it was touched by Western civilization: the Rockies 'capped and dazzling in their white mantle of snow' (Warre).

Henry James Warre was an English army officer who was assigned to Canada, where he examined and reported on river communications between Montreal and the Red River settlements in the Oregon Territory, and points beyond. He left Montreal in May, 1845, and returned there in July of the following year. The best of the sketches he made during the expedition were published in Warre's Sketches in North America and the Oregon Territory (London: 1848), which also included a map and narrative text, 'Sketch of the Journey'. The present image is one of the best prints from this spectacular work. In the 'Sketch of the Journey' he writes: 'At fort Colville, we again embarked in boats to ascend the Upper Columbia river to the Boat Encampment, a distance of 250 miles. We abandoned the boats at this point, and commenced on foot, the ascent of the Rocky Mountains. We had for many days been surrounded by magnificent mountains... The mountains are about 10,000 feet in height, unequalled in any part of Switzerland for the ruggedness of their peaks and beauty of form, capped and dazzling in their white mantle of snow'.

Cf. Abbey Travel II, 656; cf. Graff 4543; cf. Howes W-114; cf. Sabin 101455; cf. Smith 10727; cf. Stokes, 1846-F-76 and 1846-F-78; cf. Tooley (1954) 500; cf. Wagner-Camp 157.

Item #18378

Price: $3,500.00