Adalbert J. Volck's (German/Maryland, 1828-1912) Confederate War Etchings portfolio, the complete portfolio with 29 chine-colle etchings plus index leaf on card and author's explanatory note printed on blue paper. Housed in the original cloth-spined hardcover portfolio case. From the edition of 100 published by Porter & Coates, Philadelphia, c. 1880s. Lot also includes a hardback copy of George McCullough Anderson's The Work of Adalbert Johann Volck (Baltimore: Private Printing, 1970). Ref.: Howes V138. Housed loose in portfolio with interleafing. Etchings in various sizes, mounted to card stock. Sheets: 15" x 11 1/4" each. Portfolio: 15 3/4" H x 11 3/4" L x 3/4" D. Note: This portfolio was originally issued c. 1863 under the pseudonym V. Blada. Prints from that edition and a second wartime edition are exceptionally rare. According to Howes, "[t]he original issue was probably suppressed by the author as the caricatures bordered on treason. The re-issued form was doubtless made up of the suppressed sheets or printed from the original copper-plates. One of the plates, 'Meeting of the Southern emissaries and Lincoln,' had evidently been lost in storage, so does not appear in that issue..." Mark E. Neely states that the Porter & Coates edition "was supposedly printed from the original Volck plates on fine paper, seamlessly affixed to heavier paper." (See Neely et al, The Confederate Image: Prints of the Lost Cause, pp. 51-54.)

Overall very good condition. Portfolio case with remnants of cloth ties, wear to edges, and splitting to cloth spine. Pencil check marks and inscription to index leaf, plus additional pencil inscription to board. Each mounted title in pencil, below plate. Some mounts with soiling to edges and marginal foxing, outside of plates.