Approximately 66 leaves of original pen & ink drawings, most with beautiful hand color. Also a small number of 18th and early 19th century engravings related to Mexico, mostly plates of people, extracted from published travel accounts. Plus 2 printed museum prospectuses and a group of 5 original letters.

The majority of the drawings include annotations in Shippard's hand and are often dated and/or include his signature or initials. Many of the images are carefully made copies from well-known Mexican codices, as well as hand drawn copies from Lord Kingsborough's color-plate book on Mexican Antiquities. The latter are often identified here by Shippard with references to Agostino Aglio, the artist commissioned by Kingsborough to illustrate his publication. Aglio worked with William Bullock as well as Lord Kingsborough on matters relating to Mexican Antiquities, from approximately 1824 to 1830. While there is no internal evidence herein that indicates any direct connection between Shippard and Aglio, it stands to reason that Shippard could have been in contact with Aglio given their common interest in Mexican topics.

Shippard's activities in collecting materials for his Museum of Mankind (2 printed prospectuses for Shippard's museum are included in the present group) place him squarely within the British collecting melieu that included aristocratic or wealthy patrons such as Lord Kingsborough and Sir Thomas Phillipps, and artists such as Agostino Aglio and Geroge Catlin, the latter seeking the patronage of enthusiastic collectors. Shippard may have lacked the flair for showmanship that propelled a figure like William Bullock to a modicum of success with Mexican exhibitions in the early 19th century London, however this collection provides evidence that his interest in early Mexican cultures was sincere and intellectually serious.

Many of the drawings bear Shippard's autograph notes, sometimes extensive, all written in his distinctive hand. Most of the visual works are on paper, a few are pencil drawings on tracing paper.

Shippard & British Collecting of Mexican Antiquities:

Capt. William H. Shippard (1803-1865) was an avid watercolorist and museologist, a pioneering British Mesoamericanist, and a friend of George Catlin; he appears in British newspaper notices from the 1840s as a London-based lecturer associated with the Royal Society; he was involved in attempts to organize early London museum exhibitions of Mexican antiquities, where he coincided with a group of like-minded prominent English collectors interested in Mexican topics active during the 1820s and 1830s, including Lord Kingsborough and the bibliomaniac Sir Thomas Phillipps. He seems to have been an armchair anthropologist and would-be museum founder, whose ambitious ideas for a London based museum never got off the ground. Certain aspects of Shippard's career are akin to William Bullock, the showman and connoisseur of Mexican antiquities who actually did travel to Mexico and achieved a level of recognition as the empresario of London's Egyptian Hall, wherein he thrilled large London audiences with his elaborate exhibitions of exotica, including Mexican items.

The present material relates almost entirely to Mexican antiquities, it is primarily visual, with the bulk comprising original pen and ink drawings, many of which with beautiful handcoloring. This artwork is mostly drawn from Mexican codices, such as the Mendoza Codex, and published plate books, including Lord Kingsborough's famous set on Mexican Antiquities, which reproduced the artwork of Agostino Aglio.

Highlights of the visual materials include:

Dozens of drawings: as stated above, including the Aztec Calendar Stone, exquisitely hand-colored pen & ink drawing of the famous Aztec Calendar stone, and the Mendoza Codex, finely executed pen & ink copy of the iconic first page of the Codex Mendoza, incorporating a prominent representation of Tenochtitlan in the form of an eagle, detailing the lineage of Aztec rulers and their conquests.

Captain William Henry Shippard’s manuscript notebook:

Containing notes on Mexican antiquities from various sources on Mesoamerican topics, Native American languages, bibliographical details of American books and maps, etc. S.a. [ca. 1835 - 1850]. London and Southend, Essex. Folio, (330 x 215 mm). Early 19th century sheep over marbled boards. 268 pp. on lined laid paper with lion rampant watermark. Ownership name on front pastedown: "W. H. Shippard / 5 Caroline Street / Bedford Square / 17 June 1835.". A unique manuscript compilation with notes and extracts mainly concerning early Mexican history, taken by Waldeck, Kingsborough, Humboldt, Balbi, Sloane, Dampier, etc. The notebook contains the following section titles: Architectural Antiquities of Central America. Yucatan. Notes from Voyage Pittoresque et Archeologique by Frederic de Waldeck; Plate XI. The Kingsborough Pyramid; Colours; Plan of the Palace; Temple of the Sun; Temple for the Fire Virgins; Plate XIII must be Temple of the Two Serpents; Plate XIV & XV, Temple of Sun and the Temple of the Asterisms; Plate XVI Study of a part of the Temple of the Sun; Statements of Former Authors. Uxmal or Itzalane (pages 67-72); Central America, Vera Cruz to River Atrato, S.A. Maps. 29 June 1849. W.H.S. Brit. Mus. (pages 101-103); Mountains of Central America (pages 104-107); The Panama Railroad: "The following account of this important work is supplied by Colonel Hughes, the chief engineer." from Times of 6 July 1849.; Grey Town; Maps. [Listing of early maps of the New World, Mexico, New Spain, West Indies, Florida, and the like, ending with Arrowsmith's 1841 map of Texas] (pages 127-130); Nicaragua: Louis Napoleon. Canal of Nicaragua or a Project to Connect the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans by means of a Canal. London. 1846 (page 147); River Tipitaka; Caledonian Canal (page 153); Earthquakes of New World (page 155); List of Medicines for Mosquito Shore (page 260); Mails in the Pacific, 22 Jan. 1850 (page 263); Tabular listing of American Languages taken from Balbi's Ethnographical Atlas (pages 201-205).

A fragment of heavily annotated gatherings of George Catlin’s Letters and Notes on North American Indians by Shippard, including references to Catlin paintings, comparisons of North American Indians with Mexican tribes, and criticisms of Catlin's work.

Six unbound annotated gatherings from George Catlin's Letters and Notes on the Manners, Customs, and Conditions of North American Indians (London, 1844) heavily annotated with marginalia by Shippard, specifically these pages comprise Letters Nos. 19-27 (pp. 131-224). Shippard here makes connections between Catlin's observations of North American tribes and the ancient Mexicans, including his own speculative ideas. In addition, many of Shippard's notes concern specific portraits or paintings by Catlin. The following are excerpts from the manuscript marginalia:

“Blackened Warriors, striking reddened Post”; “Pawnee similar to Ancient Mexicans human sacrifices formerly”; “Mandans give 8 horses for one white bison skin”; “Mandans raise much corn or maize.... How can they be great agriculturists withoug recording days proper for sowing seed?”; “Mandan, tradition, like Mexican of their coming from inside of earth”; “All tribes who raise corn have green corn dance”; “Rude Mexican drawings so says Catlin!!!!”; “Aghio called it like Palenque does. Bullock called it Campeachy face. Waldeck says some women are still like it in Yucatan. Stephens says...Palenque and Catherwood intended to draw them but did not”

Rare prospectuses and ephemeral items concerning Shippard's museum schemes:

Museum of Mankind. [1842]. London. Printed by William Clowes and Sons. 30 pp. Original blue printed wrappers. Minor creasing and slight spot staining to wrappers. Internally very clean. A crisp, very good copy.

My Museum. [1844]. [London]. 3 pp. Folded sheet. Very good. “This Institution is intended to illustrate the History of Man by means of Popular Lectures, aided and enforced by Scenery, Maps, Costumes, &c.”

The Museum of History. Notices of the Press. [1846]. [London]. Printed by J. & H. Cox. 16 pp. Self wrappers. Old vertical fold marks.

Exhibition Rooms. Subscribed Capital £. 3rd October 1850. London. 3 pp. Bifolium printed on blue paper. Prospectus for shares in an incorporated Company to carry on art Exhibition Rooms, basically financing a Museum with shares. The text details the nature of the Company, including the type of material to be collected and exhibited by the Society “It has been long a matter of regret and surprise that there absolutely does not exist in such a place as London a series of Exhibition Rooms… While we have at present Panoramas of the Nile, India, New Zealand, Australia, California, &c. &c., not one single exhibition has sufficient space to do common justice to the Artist... The present Society is therefore founded to supply that deficiency.”

The collection presents multiple avenues of interest, particularly in the realm of the early 19th century British collecting culture of Mexican Antiquities, it sheds much light on Shippard's activities in early 19th century Mesoamerican collecting. Shippard's extensive annotations in the margins of many of the drawings indicate his intense interest in the topic of early American cultures. We here see Shippard engaged in comparative studies of American indigenous cultures, rather than just an aid for Catlin. The exact nature of Shippard's theories on American cultures is yet not known, however his interest may have been informed by early 1830s theories of a connection between Native Americans and the Lost Tribes of Isreal, which resonated among certain many people at the time.

While there has been a spate of books and articles on William Bullock's Mexican exhibitions, and other books on 19th century British fascination with Mexico (Robert D. Aguierre's Information Empire: Mexico and Central America in Victorian Culture), Shippard's efforts have heretofore been overlooked. The absence of Shippard's name from recent scholarship on 19th century British collecting culture reflects the paucity of accessible original source material relating to projects. The present collection thus represents a significant opportunity to widen the scope of studies concerning the position of Mexican cultural objects in British visual culture and collecting during the 19th century.

Provenance: by descent to a family member who inherited the family papers; auction in the U.K.