Warrior of the Island of Sawoe, Antique Wahlen Costume Print, 1843-1844

A warrior of the island of Sawoe, an original antique wood engraving 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 "Guerrier de L'isle Sawoe", a warrior of the island of Sawoe, the small island now usually written Savu or Sabu, lying between Sumba and Timor in the Lesser Sunda chain. Sawoe was a dry island whose people depended heavily on the lontar palm, and it was known in the period for supplying men to Dutch service in the eastern archipelago. Plates from these smaller islands are the scarcer part of the series, because a copy of the work had to be broken for them to appear separately. The sheet is a wood engraving on paper and is uncoloured, as issued in this part of the series, and the crispness of the block work is what carries the image.

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, and 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 Sawoe warrior belongs naturally with the Solor, Timor and Rotti plates from the same series, and four of them hung together make a far stronger group than any one sheet.

The sheet is in good condition for its age, with light toning, a small edge nick and faint marginal soiling; the image itself 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.