[Rarebooks] FS: 1859 American Rosetta Stone Chromo Plates

[Joslin Hall Rare Books]

“Report of the Committee appointed by the Philomathean Society of the 
University of Pennsylvania to translate the inscription on the Rosetta 
Stone”

By Charles Hale, S. Huntington-Jones & Henry Morton.
Published in Philadelphia; printed by L.N. Rosenthal in 1859. 2nd 
edition.

Certainly one of the most remarkable and striking examples of American 
19th century color lithography and Victorian book illustration. It was 
based upon a translation of a plaster cast of the Rosetta Stone which 
had been given to the Society, but this seems to have been merely an 
excuse, seized upon by Henry Morton as the starting point for a 
Victorian extravaganza of Egyptian and Floral-motif based, 
pseudo-Medieval decorative frenzy. There are five separate 
color-lithographed plates of Egyptian scenes and a full-page 
lithographed illustration of the stone itself, but this is merely the 
start. The illusion of a Medieval illuminated manuscript is first 
suggested by the use of script for the text, a decorative conceit made 
possible by the use of lithographic stones to print the entire book (it 
is said more than 400 separate stones were used). Seventy of the text 
pages are bordered with decorative elements, many with decorative 
initial letters, and floral and Egyptian designs. The section-header 
pages are also elaborately decorated. The use of many different 
illustrative styles, from extremely stylized to extremely realistic, is 
a pure Victorian imagery which keeps the production firmly footed in the 
nineteenth century. Some of the most interesting decorations are the 
Egyptian-based ones, featuring both decorative motifs and entire scenes 
twining around the text.

Originally produced in an edition of some 400 copies, the entire initial 
printing is said to have been exhausted within a few days. The second 
printing was done from a different set of stones and is, therefor, not 
an exact reproduction of the first. As the first included a distinctly 
bizarre pagination this is not all bad news; the pagination here is 
better, but still has strange irregularities. There was, of course, a 
serious side to the production, with lithographed reproductions of the 
Stone's inscriptions and hieroglyphs, along with translations, and a 
history of the Stone and its discovery. The entire production took three 
years and becomes all the more remarkable when we consider that the 
three were students at the time, the oldest of them only 22. An 
interesting testament to the skill and ingenuity of the designer Henry 
Morton and the lithographer, L.N. Rosenthal.

Hardcover. 8"x9", decorated title page, decorated dedication page, 5 
unnumbered text pages + half-title + pages 9-152, + 8 unnumbered pages 
illustrating the Demotic alphabet and a 22 page listing of members of 
the Society; with 6 additional plates, including a frontispiece 
lithograph of the Stone and 5 scenic color plates. Bound in the original 
pebbled cloth with blindstamped scroll designs and a gilt-impressed 
Sphinx in the center of the front and rear covers. Covers worn, with 
loss at the top and bottom of the spine; there is a little internal 
soil, and several of the color plates are loose.  $650-


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