Dance of Bulgarian Peasants by Firelight, Antique Aquatint, 1809

An original antique aquatint with original hand color, 1809, one of the views drawn by Luigi Mayer and published in London by Robert Bowyer. The caption engraved below the image reads "DANCE OF BULGARIAN PEASANTS."

A night scene lit by a fire burning on open ground. At the left a line of women in yellow dresses with red sashes and white head cloths dances hand in hand, with a young man among them, while near the left edge a woman stands holding a child. In the center foreground a dark figure with a long pole over his shoulder is seen from behind against the blaze.

At the right spectators watch from in front of a two story timber house with a balcony, where a woman looks down from the upper floor. Turbaned men sit on the ground smoking long pipes, and behind them stand men in fur caps and others in European top hats, one of them reading from a sheet of paper.

No artist or engraver is named on the plate, and it carries no plate number. The caption is engraved in open capitals below the image, and beneath it a publication line in script gives the publisher Robert Bowyer, his address at 80 Pall Mall, and the date 1809. The plate comes from Views in the Ottoman Dominions, in Europe, in Asia, and some of the Mediterranean Islands, from the original drawings taken for Sir Robert Ainslie, by Luigi Mayer, printed by T. Bensley for R. Bowyer in London in 1810 with 71 hand colored aquatint plates (Abbey, Travel II, 371; Tooley 321). In the book each plate was accompanied by a page of descriptive text in French and English. The plates are unsigned; the aquatint work is probably by William Watts. Luigi Mayer (1755 to 1803) was an Italian born artist who worked in the Ottoman Empire for Sir Robert Ainslie, British ambassador at Constantinople.

Even age toning. Handling soiling along the bottom edge. A few small foxing spots in the margin. All four corners complete.

This is an original antique print, not a modern reproduction. This item is sold unframed.