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A Handsome Pair of Nebel’s Famous
Mexican-American War Battle Scenes
“These seem to
the editor to be
the very best American battle scenes in existence.”
—Whitman
Bennett, A Practical Guide
to American Nineteenth Century Color
Plate Books
Carl Nebel. Two hand-colored
lithographs from the portfolio The War Between the United
States and Mexico, Illustrated. Embracing Pictorial Drawings of All
the Principal Conflicts by Carl Nebel, . . . With a Description of
Each Battle, By Geo. Wilkins Kendall” (New York: D.
Appleton & Company, 1851). Each lithograph described as follows:
Original hand color with heavy gum arabic. Image size: 10 7/8 x 16
5/8", with margins (by sight). Framed size: 24 3/4 x 30 3/4".
Imprinted in l. l. corner: “C. Nebel fecit”; in l. r.
corner: “Bayot lith.” Stamped in l. l. corner: “Entered
According to Act of Congress.” Handsome archival presentation
in French mats and black-and-gold frames. Overall fine condition (by
sight), with minor problems noted below.
“Capture of Monterey”
(minor scattered foxing in margins)
“Bombardment of Vera Cruz”
(minor scattered foxing in margins)
One of the extraordinary sets of prints produced in Paris during the middle of
the nineteenth century, Carl Nebel's suite of illustrations for
George Wilkins Kendall's War Between the United States and Mexico,
Illustrated are the finest and most important prints of the
Mexican-American War. Kendall, the editor of the New Orleans Daily
Picayune, became America's first great war correspondent when he
accompanied the United States Army as it crossed into Mexico in 1846.
Before he left Mexico, he contracted with German artist Carl Nebel,
who had been in Mexico for years, to collaborate on an illustrated
history of the war. After the war, both men went to Europe to
organize the project. The hand-colored lithographs were compiled from
their eyewitness accounts of the battles. The accompanying text was
printed by the Picayune print shop in New Orleans and
distributed by D. Appleton, the influential publisher in New York.
Aesthetically compelling and historically profound, Nebel's work received extremely
high praise at the time of publication and today represents a
pinnacle of achievement in several categories: historical Americana,
printing techniques, and eyewitness reportage of the United States'
first military conflict on foreign soil.
Ref.:
Whitman Bennett, A Practical Guide to American Nineteenth Century
Color Plate Books (1800–1900) (Ardsley, New York: Haydn
Foundation for the Cultural Arts, Inc., 1980, reprint ed.), p. 65.
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