Álbum del ferrocarril mexicano : colección de vistas pintadas del natural por Casimiro Castro. Con una descripcion del camino y de las regiones que recorre por Antonio Garcia Cubas.

Album del Ferrocarril Mexicano - Album of the Mexican Railway: A Collection of Views Taken from Nature...With a Description of the Line and Country Through Which it Passes. First edition in English, Spanish and French. Illustrated with 1 chromolithographic title-page, 24 chromolithographic plates and 1 chromolithographic map.
The plates include spectacular views of Veracruz, Orizaba, Puebla, and illustrations of stations, locomotives, freight and passenger trains, bridges and tunnels, etc. The text is by Antonio Garcia Cubas.
The translation of the Spanish text is by George F.Henderson. The French translation is bound at the end and is done by G.Gostkowski. This glorious plate book, published the same year that Porfirio Díaz came to power, captures a pivotal moment in Mexican history, with its clashing images of powerful machines intruding into pristine, picturesque landscapes, heralding the evolution of a rural-agrarian world of "many Mexicos" to a unified modern technological society.
"Some of the finest examples of the lithographer's art during the latter part of the century. Chromolithography by Debray y Cía of the work of Casimiro Castro and A. Sigogne illustrated Antonio García Cubas's extraordinary Album del Ferrocarril Mexicano" (Mathes).
Casimiro Castro (1826 - 1889) was a Mexican lithographer, draftsman and painter, considered one of the great Mexican lithographers and landscape artists of the 19th century. His works hold both historic and artistic value in Mexico today, and are in the collections of Mexican museums. The versatile artist also created designs for facades and shop interiors, posters, landscapes and even fashion designs. His work on this album celebrates Mexico as it was undergoing modernization, epitomized by the advent of train transportation.

This book is difficult to find complete with all the plates as well as the map. This copy has all of the required plates plus the map and is in very good condition with its original decorative publishers binding.

Reference: Palau, 98733.