Gallerie der Menschen: Ein Bilderbuch für die Jugend zur Erweiterung ihrer Kenntnisse und Befriedigung ihrer Wissbegierde. Zweiter Theil

Leipzig: Friedrich August Leo, 1799. Hardcover. Very Good. Small 4to (140 x 106mm). [iv], 91pp. 29 finely hand-colored engraved plates fully captioned depicting costume and peoples of the world. Period boards backed in cloth; (some light outer wear, early ownership signature in ink on top edge of front free-endpaper and title page, light, marginal thumbsoiling of plates; else contents are clean; very good).

Children’s book of Continental costumes printed in Leipzig at the turn of the 19th century. A rare illustrated work first published in 1796, plentiful in delicately hand-colored engravings of native peoples from around the world. This, the second part, was probably written solely by Karl Seidel, a teacher at the Tochterschule (Public Girls School) in Dessau. This “Gallery of People” was designed as a picture book for young children, not yet in their early childhood, to expand their knowledge and satisfy their curiosity about faraway lands. The first part (not included here), included nations, professions and items that were sorted in alphabetical order from Abbess, Admiral, Amazon and Armenians to Dwarf, Gypsy and Wizard. The lives portrayed are wide ranging and include simpletons, butchers, slaves, gardeners and fools. This second part organizes the peoples (usually a man, woman and native, all with appropriate props) by continents: Asians, Africans, Americans and Indians, and Europeans. The illustrations for Native American peoples are of high interest, not only for their expert work, but for the range of tribes and geography, even the Acadian peoples of Canada are represented. This type of book departs from the common ABC books as the pictures and text have a social studies meaning. Rarely found, only two copies located at the Metropolitan Museum of Art and at Princeton’s Cotsen Library.