Annie G. Hunter (British, 1860-1927), a lithograph of her hand tinted drawings based on Alfred Percival Maudslay's (British, 1850-1931) photogravures of Mayan Stela H, ca. 1890 CE, published in Maudslay's "Biologia Centrali-Americana: Archaeology (London: R.H. Porter and Dulau, 1889-1902). Two informative and aesthetically striking depictions of Mayan Stela H based on drawings of a plaster cast in the South Kensington Museum published between 1889 and 1902 in the "Biologia Centrali-Americana, Flora y Fauna", one of the first publications that provided a significant body of Maya inscriptions that continues to remain an invaluable source. The stela depicted is from Copán. Size: 19.5" L x 12.75" W (49.5 cm x 32.4 cm)

Alfred Maudslay was a British colonial diplomat, archaeologist, and explorer who was among the first archaeologists to study Mayan civilization. He began his career working for the colonial service in Queensland, Trinidad, Tonga, Fiji, and Samoa. He then parted ways with the colonial service in 1880 to travel to Guatemala where he explored Mayan ruins at Copan and Quirigua with archaeologist Frank Sarg. The pair then travelled to Tikal. Maudsley was the first European scholar to describe Yaxchitlan, and he became famous for his explorations of Chichen with Teoberto Maler. Maudslay commissioned Annie Hunter to create drawings and watercolor illustrations of the Maya monuments he photographed in the late 1890s. She used photographs, lintels, casts, and stelae in museums as her models, and her work was published in Maudslay's momentous survey "Biologia Centrali-Americana: Archaeology (London: R.H. Porter and Dulau, 1889-1902). Hunter's work for Maudslay led to an important commission after World War I from the University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology to create watercolor and line drawn illustrations of their Maya ceramics collection.

Inspired by the travel accounts of Stephens and Catherwood, Alfred P. Maudslay carried out eight expeditions to the Maya area between 1881 and 1894. His more detailed work deals with six sites: Copán, Quirigua, Yaxchilán, Chichen Itza and Palenque. He photographed the monuments and their inscriptions, and made moulds with plaster and paper. The paper and plaster moulds made during his expeditions, at great cost, were sent to England. Maudslay donated his collection to the Victoria and Albert Museum on condition that casts would be made by his assistant Giuntini at the Museum’s expense. The casts were made between 1886 and 1891 and were later transferred to The British Museum. The Maudslay Collection, now in the Department of Ethnography, consists of over 400 plaster casts, paper and plaster moulds, glass negatives and journals written during his expeditions. It also includes nine stone sculptures from Copán and eight lintels from Yaxchilán. The results of his research, including drawings by Annie Hunter, photographs, site plans and descriptions, were published between 1889 and 1902 in the Biologia Centrali-Americana, Flora y Fauna. These publications formed the first significant corpus of Maya inscriptions and remain an invaluable tool to modern epigraphers.

Provenance: private Santa Fe, New Mexico, USA collection

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#124789

Minor discoloration of paper commensurate with age, but otherwise excellent.