[Rarebooks] FS: Exhibition advertisement for John Banvard's Pilgrimage to Jerusalem and the Holy Land, The Georama [NY] 1853 $650

[Karen Cinquemani]

We are happy to offer a rare--not found in any auction records or  
current listings--promotional booklet for artist, writer, poet John  
Banvard's second painting extravaganza, following his most famous  
Panorama of the Mississippi River, Painted on Three Miles of Canvas,  
Exhibiting a View of the Country 1200 Miles in Length.

Four libraries, including Winterthur Museum, American Antiquarian  
Society, Yale, hold copies similar to our copy of Description of  
Banvard's Pilgrimage to Jerusalem and the Holy Land in size, though  
two are dated 1852, according to WorldCat.  (as well as six copies in  
octavo, also dated 1852 or 1853)

However, the American Antiquarian Society's copy, though in wrappers,  
seems most similar to our blue cloth over flexible boards in size,  
date and content:

Title: 	Description of Banvard's pilgrimage to Jerusalem and the Holy Land; :
painted from authentic drawings made upon the spot during an extensive  
journey, undertaken expressly for the work, in four immense volumes;  
presenting in minute detail the sacred localities; the cities,  
mountains, plains and rivers; celebrated in scriptural history. :  
[Four lines from Kitto] : Now exhibiting at the Georama, 596 Broadway.  
1853.
Author(s): 	Banvard, John,; 1815-1891.
Howland, Joseph T., ; engraver.
Williams, Joseph, ; engraver.
Cooper, J., ; engraver.
Maverick, Ann Anderson,; approximately 1810-1863, ; engraver.
Banvard, John,; 1815-1891, ; cartographer.
Publication: 	[New York : s.n.,
Place: 	United States; New York; New York.
Year: 	1853
Description: 	20, [4] p. : ill., map, port. ; 30 cm.
Language: 	English
	SUBJECT(S)
Descriptor: 	Panoramas -- Jerusalem.
Panoramas -- Palestine.
Named Person: 	Banvard, John, 1815-1891 -- Portraits.
Banvard, John, 1815-1891.
Genre/Form: 	Relief prints.
Maps -- Jerusalem.
Travel literature.
Poems -- 1853.
Printed wrappers (Binding)
Geographic: 	Jerusalem -- In art.
Palestine -- In art.
Jerusalem -- Description and travel.
Palestine -- Description and travel.
Note(s): 	Frontispiece portrait of Banvard "engraved by Howland, N.Y."  
Other illustrations engraved by Joseph Williams and J. Cooper.  
Banvard's map of Jerusalem engraved by A. Maverick./ "Mr. Banvard  
would take it as a great personal favor should any of the audience see  
a person taking sketches from the painting, to inform one of the  
ushers, as his painting of the Mississippi was basely pirated when on  
exhibition in New York, in 1847"--Title page verso./ Text printed in  
two columns./ "The fall of the Amorites."--Page [21], in verse./  
"Critiques from the London press, on Mr. Banvard's appearance in the  
great Metropolis."--Page [24].
Document Type: 	Book
Entry: 	19920826
Update: 	20131009
Accession No: 	OCLC: 78344015
Database: 	WorldCat

I must admit that, at first, we thought this rarity was a book  
salesman's sample, or dummy, because of the wording "Four Immense  
Volumes."  However, these "volumes" were never printed, and now even  
Banyard's gigantic original paintings are mostly lost.

Good only condition. Cloth worn at corners and along spine. Dampstain  
and wrinkle in cloth along top front edge. Binding strings showing,  
but holding.  2" x 4" semi-circle waterstain in contents top left  
corner. Moderate foxing and paper is age-toned.  Tissues of four out  
of five plates present.  Four small engravings from other sources have  
been glued to front paste down; the artists are William Collins,  
Nicholas Condy, H.W. Pickersgill, T. Stothard.

Not mentioned in the A.A.S. cataloging above are descriptions of the  
extra, unnumbered pages including Banvard's one page essay on "The  
Holy Places" with facing plate of  "Seal and Coat of Arms of  
Jerusalem" and his "amusing" account of his "dacharbeeah" being  
swamped by a sudden simoom off the coast of Lybia--this single page  
entitled "An Incident of My Eastern Travels."

Offered to the list for $650 net, ppd, insured in U.S.  At cost  
abroad. Returnable. Usual terms. Checks, mail order, paypal...all  
appreciated.

If your interest has been piqued, below I quote his obituary from the  
New York Times, May 19, 1891, as well as the concluding lines of  
Banvard's Wikipedia bio.

Pics on http://www.facebook.com/hasbeanebooks --  Thanks for  
looking..yes, I know, I should have added "on a raft" in the blurb.

Kind regards,
Karen Cinquemani
-- 
H.A.S. Beane Books
Firehouse Plaza
P.O. Box 67
Red Hook, NY 12571
914-466-8441
books at hasbeanebooks.com
http://www.hasbeanebooks.com
http://www.facebook.com/HASBeaneBooks
Charter member of ABookCoOp http://www.TomFolio.com
Member of Independent Online Booksellers Association http://www.IOBA.org--

DEATH OF A UNIQUE MAN

JOHN BANVARD, WHO PAINTED A PICTURE THREE MILES LONG

John Banvard, the artist, died Saturday last in Watertown, S.D., of  
heart failure.  His career as an artist, a traveler, and an adventurer  
was unique and interesting, and the story of his life is full of  
incidents that go beyond the usual.

He was born in New-York about 1820, and his youthful days were spent  
in study of drawing and painting, for which he showed decided taste at  
an early age. When he was fifteen years old his father died, after  
losing his property, and the boy went to Louisville, where he worked  
for a time as a clerk in a drug store.  A year later he had opened a  
studio and established himself as an artist.  He did not long remain  
in Louisville, but after painting several pieces he started out to  
earn his living by exhibiting them, and he visited New-Orleans,  
Natchez, Cincinnati, and other towns, going by boat, and sometimes  
giving exhibitions on a flatboat fitted up for the occasion.

He made a scanty living and met many adventures and hardships.  One of  
his pictures, made about this time, was a panorama of Venice, which he  
painted wholly from imagination and afterward exhibited with success.   
While on one of his river trips, Mr. Banvard conceived of the idea of  
painting a panorama of the entire Mississippi River.  It was his  
ambition to paint the largest picture in the world.  He set about it  
in 1840.  Alone, in an open skiff, with no outfit except his rifle and  
his drawing instruments, he traveled thousands of miles.  When his  
rifle failed to bring him necessary food he painted pictures and  
exhibited them to make money enough to buy food and replenish his  
materials.

For more than a year he lived in this way, and when his preparatory  
drawings were done he erected a building in Louisville, where they  
were transferred to canvas and first exhibited.  The artist's ambition  
was realized. The painting was the largest ever made, and, complete,  
it covered three miles of canvas [reported as actually half a mile].   
It was one of the wonders of the day, after the people heard about it,  
and was exhibited in many cities of this country and abroad,  
attracting much attention.

After a series of exhibitions in Europe, the artist traveled  
extensively in Asia and Africa, and painted many pictures which were  
exhibited.  Among these was a panorama called "Pictures and Poetry of  
Palestine," and another, composed of three pictures, "First Battle  
Field of History,"  "Siege of Jerusalem--Destruction of the Temple,"  
and "Ruins of Edom."

During the war [Mexican-American War] Mr. Banvard pointed out to Gen.  
Fremont how Island 10 could be passed by a canal and certain bayous,  
and he made charts showing the route.  His suggestions were afterward  
successfully followed.  He was a prolific writer and the author of  
about 1,700 poems, several hundred of which have bee published in  
magazines here and in Great Britain. He also published "A Description  
of the Mississippi River," "Pilgrimage to the Holy Land" [apparently  
never printed], "Amasis: or, the Last of the Pharoahs," :"The Private  
Life of a King," and "Tradition of the Temple."

Two of his dramas have been acted, "Amasis," at the Boston Theatre in  
1864, and "Carinia," at the Broadway Theatre in 1875.  One of his  
paintings, "The Orison," was the picture from which the first chromo  
[chromolithograph] made in America was taken.  Nearly a quarter of a  
century ago Mr. Banvard established his panorama in what was then  
Wood's Museum, on Broadway, which afterward became Daly's Theatre.   
Here his pictures were exhibited, and, with his lectures, attracted  
considerable attention.

Critics have said that Mr. Banvard's pictures were not great in  
artistic merit.  They were remarkable because of their magnitude and  
the rapidity with which he made them.
When exhibiting his panoramas he accompanied the pictures with a  
descriptive lecture, which often was a feature of his entertainments.

Wikipedia adds to Mr. Banvard's biography with:

his "largest panorama began as 12 feet (3,6 m) high and 1300 feet (369  
m) long and was eventually expanded to about half a mile (about 800  
meters) although it was advertised as a "three-mile canvas". It toured  
around the nation, and was eventually cut up into hundreds of pieces,  
none of which still exist today.
Banvard presenting to Queen Victoria, Windsor Castle, 1849

"Scientific American magazine published a piece under "New Inventions"  
in its issue of December 16, 1848, describing and illustrating  
Banvard's mechanism for displaying a moving panorama.

"In 1846 he began to travel with this panorama in Europe, Asia and  
Africa and even gave Queen Victoria a private viewing. His portrait  
was painted in 1849 by the English artist Anna Mary Howitt.[1] During  
his travels he also painted panoramas in Palestine and the Nile River  
Valley.

"On his return his invested part of the fortune he had made in 60  
acres (240,000 m2) overlooking Cold Spring Harbor on the North Shore  
of Long Island, where in 1852-55, in competition with P. T. Barnum's  
palace "Iranistan" in Bridgeport, Connecticut, he proceeded to design  
and have built a baronial residence from its eastern shore, which, it  
was given out, was intended to resemble Windsor Castle; he named the  
place Glenada, the glen of his daughter Ada, but the locals called it  
"Banvard's Folly".[2] After his death it became a fashionable resort  
hotel, The Glenada.

"The Brooklyn-based history band Pinataland recorded a song about  
Banvard's travails for their 2008 album "Songs for the Forgotten  
Future Vol. 2".