Eleven Numbered Turbans and Caps, Antique Niebuhr Plate XX, 1776

This is an original antique copper engraving from 1776, plate XX of volume 1 of Carsten Niebuhr's Voyage en Arabie. The sheet carries no caption. Its only lettering is the plate number at the upper right and the numerals 10 to 20 engraved above the heads, so the subject is described here from what is drawn: a sheet of men's heads, each wearing a different turban or cap.

Eleven heads are set out in four rows inside a double ruled border, each numbered in a small italic hand. Several wear wound turbans, two of them finished with a small tassel at the crown (10 and 11) and one a broad striped turban (19). Number 13 wears a soft cap whose long tail falls behind the head, number 14 a plain pointed cap, and numbers 15 and 16 large round fur caps, one tightly curled and one shaggy. Number 17 has a tall fluted cap rising out of a wound turban, number 18 a tall cylindrical cap of curled fur, and number 20 a soft, creased cap edged with fur. At the upper right, number 12 is the largest figure on the sheet: a bearded man in a tall pointed headdress with an ornamented upright piece at the front, from which a long, finely lined cloth falls behind him to about the middle of the plate. Most of the men wear a beard or a moustache, and the heads are drawn in profile, in three quarter view or full face, with the folds of the cloth and the texture of the fur given by close engraved line and stipple.

The plate number Tab: XX. is engraved at the upper right, above the border. No artist's or engraver's name is lettered on this sheet, and the lower margin is blank.

The sheet comes from the first volume of Carsten Niebuhr's Voyage en Arabie & en d'autres Pays circonvoisins, the Tome Premier, translated from the German and issued at Amsterdam by S. J. Baalde and at Utrecht by J. van Schoonhoven and Comp., with the date MDCCLXXVI on its title page. Niebuhr (1733 to 1815) was a German born surveyor in Danish service and the only member of the Danish expedition to Arabia (1761 to 1767), sent by King Frederick V of Denmark, to return alive.

Light uneven toning, browner toward the edges. Handling soiling along the bottom and top edges. A few small foxing spots in the margin. All four corners are present.

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