Aruba Landscape & Mountain Views - Dutch West Indies by Karl Martin, 1888
€ 440
Original antique · The actual sheet photographed · Certificate of authenticity on request · Sold unframed · Worldwide shipping from € 15 (rates)
Date
1888
Sheet size
19 × 28 cm (7.5 × 11.0 in)
Condition
Good
Reference
BG-14171-21, -22
What the condition grades mean
Excellent
Bright and clean, with no faults worth mentioning.
Very good
Only light signs of age, such as faint toning.
Good
Normal signs of age for a sheet of this period: toning, some foxing, small marks or neat old repairs.
Fair
Clear faults such as staining, tears or repairs, priced to match.
Every fault we see is written in the condition note, and the whole sheet is shown uncropped in the photos.
Condition
Both original lithographs are in very good antique condition. Even overall age toning consistent with late 19th-century paper. Light scattered foxing, mainly confined to the outer margins. Images remain clean and well preserved with strong clarity.
About this sheet
Two landscape views of Aruba, an original pair of lithographs from Karl Martin's Bericht uber eine Reise nach Niederlandisch West-Indien, published at Leiden by E. J. Brill in 1888. The plates are lettered "Tab. XV" and "Tab. XVI" at the upper right and are printed in gray with a buff tint stone.
Tab. XV shows a dry valley between low hills, its floor covered with scrub, cactus and bushes, with a few palms in the middle distance and scattered boulders in the foreground. Tab. XVI is a wider coastal view in which a single large conical hill rises from a flat plain above a curving shoreline, with a cliff-edged terrace and a line of low vegetation in the middle ground. Columnar cacti and two spreading trees stand along the foreground, and clouds gather above the summit.
Aruba's dry climate and its volcanic and limestone ground are the subject of Martin's geological report, and these landscapes show what the island looked like to him in the 1880s. The plates sit alongside the geological map of the island, which names the hills and settlements, in the same book.
