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ENGRAVED
BOOKS —
ENTIRELY ENGRAVED!
The FIRST ENTIRELY ENGRAVED Book
Printed in
the AMERICAS
Montes de Oca, José. Vida de San Felipe de Jesus protomartir de Japon y patron de su patria Mexico. Mexico: Montes de Oca ... Calle del. Baustisterio de S. Catalina m.e n.o 3, 1801. 4to (23 cm; 9"). [1] f., 28 [of 30] plts.
$8750.00
Click the interior images for enlargements.
With this work Montes de Oca secured for himself the position of the most important and talented engraver in the New World at the beginning of the 19th century. He conceived and
self-published this, the first entirely engraved book printed in the Americas. In a series of 30 plates with captions he told the biography of St. Philip of Jesus (1572–97), the protomartyr of Japan.
This is a rare book with only nine U.S. libraries reporting ownership: Several of those copies are lacking either one, two, or three of the plates, and it is certain that the book was issued unbound, as a gathering of 31 individual leaves, thus accounting for copies with less than the “requisite” engraved title and 30 plates. This copy in fact confirms that the plates spent part of their lives unbound, as two of them are touched by small instances of worming that have not touched their next neighbors!
Montes de Oca's plates are particularly detailed and moving when they show the saint in Japan being abused and tortured, but all are strong and striking.
Uncut.
Palau 363045. Late 19th-century plain sheep binding. Uncut; lacking two plates and two with minor worming as noted above; all plates well impressed, as would be expected of a work that the artist himself saw through the press!
A very good copy of a scarce and important work. (25095)

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