Vischer's Views of California: The Mammoth Tree Grove: Calaveras County, California, and Its Avenues

San Francisco: Edward Vischer, 1862. VISCHER, Edward. First edition, third and best issue (with three more lithographs than the first issue). Title leaf (frontispiece) and twelve lithographic plates by Vischer, with a total of 25 engravings. Oblong folio, mount size (10 7/8 x 13 5/8 inches; 275 x 345 mm). The lithographer was C.C. Kuchel, and the printer L. Nagel. With the exception of the title leaf, the lithographs are mounted (as issued) and have letterpress descriptive text in purple. All plates are loose, as issued in the original cloth portfolio. Portfolio rebacked. Mounted on the inside of the front cover is a lithograph closely resembling the title leaf, but lacking printer's, lithographer's, and typographer's imprints. Mounted on the inside back cover is the "Index" and "Visitor's Guide."

The present volume is Farquhar's state A, in a cloth portfolio rather than a pictorial paper envelope. In the envelope issue was a four-page folded sheet with text, which was not issued with this present issue. The text was reduced and edited and mounted on the inside rear cover of the cloth issue. Present with this copy and housed outside the portfolio is a good photocopy facsimile of the four pages that were issued with the envelope issue which include the "Introductory Remarks" by Vischer the "Appendix" and the "Description of Plates." These four pages are mounted on front and back of two thick boards.

Plate titles include: The Approaches to the Grove; Mother of the Forest, The Three Graces, The Two Guardsmen; The Mammoth Grove Hotel; The Fallen Hercules of the Grove; Hermit; The Orphans, and others.

Original cloth portfolio. Front board stamped in blind and lettered in gilt. Almost invisibly rebacked, preserving the original spine. Some toning to the sheets mounted to the inside covers. Some light toning and offsetting to mounts, but plates are very clean and lovely. Overall, an excellent item; exceptionally rare, as are all Vischer publications.

"Vischer visited the Calaveras Grove in 1859 and again in 1861, In 1862, following his second visit, a broadside and a portfolio reproducing his sketches by the lithographic process were issued. Lithographic reproduction ceased when the stone upon which the principal views were drawn was broken" (Currey & Kruska).

Edward Vischer as a young man of nineteen emigrated from Germany to Mexico where he was associated with the commercial house of Heinrich Virmond. In the employ of Virmond, or other German-Latin American companies, he acted as supercargo on many trading voyages to west-coast ports of the Americas and to the Orient. In 1842, he became interested in California and agreed to travel there for Virmond. It was in this way that Vischer first came to know the region, anchoring at Monterey, taking an excursion northwest to the port of Yerba Buena, and visiting Santa Barbara and Los Angeles. On this visit he fell in love with California. He gladly returned to San Francisco where he was active in currency exchange operations, acted as agent for German-Mexican firms, as marine forwarding agent, as real estate agent, and as a mortgage banker. At the age of fifty, Vischer became intensely interested in sketching and painting. He combined with these interests a skill in photography. It was his practice to make rapid sketches on the spot of scenes which interested him, the big trees, the ruins of Missions, or mining operations, and later to work up these sketches in water colour, pencil, pen or crayon. Subsequently he reproduced his drawing, first by lithography and later by photography. Using these techniques, Vischer published portfolios of drawings: The Mammoth Tree Grove (1862), The Washoe Mining Region (1862), Pictorial of California Landscape (1870), and Missions of Upper California (1872).

Farquhar 376, 3rd issue, state A. Cowan 1933, page 662; Greenwood 1740; Howes V132.

HBS 68460.

$15,000.