Native of Vatou-Lele, Fiji, Antique Wahlen Costume Print, 1843-1844

An original antique wood engraving of a native of the island of Vatou-Lele in Fiji, an ethnographic costume print from Auguste Wahlen's Moeurs, usages et costumes de tous les peuples du monde, published in Brussels between 1843 and 1844. The plate is lettered "Naturel de l'ile Vatou-Lélé (Archipel Viti)". Archipel Viti is Fiji, and Vatou-Lele is the older French spelling of Vatulele, a small island lying south of Viti Levu. Fiji was still largely outside European control in the 1840s, known to the outside world through the sandalwood and beche-de-mer trades, through missionary reports and through the surveying voyages that passed among the islands, and a Brussels compiler assembling a costume book worked from that scattered and second hand material. The sheet is one of the relatively few early nineteenth century European prints devoted to Fiji rather than to the larger Polynesian groups.

Moeurs, usages et costumes de tous les peuples du monde was published in Brussels by Auguste Wahlen at the Librairie Historique-Artistique between 1843 and 1844. The four volumes set out to describe the dress, customs, occupations and social divisions of the peoples of Europe, Asia, Africa, the Americas and Oceania, drawing on travel narratives, earlier costume books and other sources then treated as authoritative, and they carried approximately one hundred and ninety to two hundred plates, the count varying between copies and editions.

Wahlen was the publisher and compiler rather than the artist; where a name such as Duverger, Pannemaker, Mercier, Lisbet, Markaert or Vermorcken appears on a sheet it belongs to the illustrator or the engraver, and no artist is attributed here without one.

The plates are wood engravings on paper. The images should be read as a nineteenth century European interpretation of the cultures they show rather than as a documentary record, which is a large part of what makes the series interesting to historians of the period. The sheet is uncoloured, as issued, and the wood engraving prints with the crisp line and even tone that suits a simple mount and a plain frame. Plates from this series group well, and a set of four or six drawn from the Oceania section hangs better together than a single sheet on its own.

The sheet is in good condition for its age, with light toning, faint soiling in the lower left margin and small nicks at the right edge; the image is clean and strong.

This is an original antique print, not a modern reproduction. This item is sold unframed. Any framed or interior images are shown for presentation and inspiration only, unless the listing explicitly states that the item is sold framed.