Queen of the Sandwich Islands, Antique Wahlen Costume Print, 1843-1844

An original antique wood engraving of a queen of the Sandwich Islands, 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 “Reine des iles Sandwich”. The Sandwich Islands is the name by which Europeans of the period knew Hawaii, and in the eighteen forties the islands were an independent kingdom under the dynasty founded by Kamehameha the First. Rank in Hawaiian society passed through both lines of descent, and women of the chiefly class held authority in their own right, several of them acting as regent or as a leading figure at court in the first half of the century. No individual is named in the caption, so the figure is probably intended as a general type rather than a portrait.

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. This impression is uncoloured. Hawaiian subjects are among the most sought after in this series, and the sheet is of interest for what it shows of how the Hawaiian kingdom was presented to a European reading public shortly before the wave of treaties and settlement that followed. The plate suits a study or a room with a Pacific theme, and this ethnographic print pairs particularly well with the warrior of the Sandwich Islands from the same volumes, or with a group of Wahlen costume prints of Oceania.

The sheet is in good condition for its age, with a frayed right edge and faint marginal soiling; the portrait itself is clean and crisp.

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.