Young Woman of Timbuktu, Mali, Antique Hand-Colored Ethnographic Print, 1854

A young woman of Timbuktu, an original antique hand colored print of 1854, the coloring applied by hand over a printed outline. The caption below the figure reads JEUGDIG MEISJE VAN TOMBUCTOO., meaning Young girl of Timbuktu.

She stands full length on a small oval of ground, turned slightly to the viewer's left. Her hair is gathered under a tall yellow conical headdress tied with a blue ribbon, and she wears drop earrings and necklaces of red beads. Her fitted blue and yellow jacket has short sleeves over full white undersleeves and a pale green front laced across. A broad red skirt is drawn up in heavy folds over white trousers banded with yellow at the ankle, and she wears red pointed slippers. In her raised right hand she holds a fan of pink, white and green feathers.

No artist, lithographer or publisher is named on the plate, and there is no plate number above or below the image; the printed caption is the only lettering on the sheet.

The plate comes from the second volume, the Tweede Deel, of De Volken van den Aardbodem, the Dutch edition of Heinrich Berghaus's illustrated work on the peoples of the world, translated from the German by M. J. van Oven and published at Gorinchem by J. Noorduyn en Zoon in 1854. The title page of the volume announces 120 extra fine plates colored after nature. Berghaus was a German geographer, best known for his Physikalischer Atlas. Timbuktu lies near the Niger River in present day Mali. The French traveler Rene Caillie reached it in 1828 and returned to publish an account of the town.

Light uneven toning, browner towards the edges. Marked handling soiling along all four edges. Foxing over much of the margin. Slight wear at the bottom left corner.

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