Folio (523 x 380 mm). Tinted lithographic portrait of Commodore Perry after a daguerreotype by Philip Haas with facsimile signature, 9 chromolithographic plates printed by Sarony & Co. on India paper and mounted to bristol board; with 12pp. letterpress text. (Some minor spotting, heavier to text leaves.) Plates loose as issued in half morocco portfolio (lacking ties); text in original blue cloth-backed printed wrappers; cloth folding case. 

FIRST EDITION OF HEINE'S RARE WORK, THE DELUXE ISSUE, printed on India paper, mounted on bristol board, and finished by hand, documenting Commodore Perry's expedition to Japan. 

"The plates are of very beautiful Japanese scenes and places of special interest, many times finer than the plates in the three-volume regular account of the Perry Expedition" (Bennett). The numbered plates depict: 1. Portrait of Perry; 2. Macao from Penha Hill; 3. Whampoa Pagoda; 4. Old China Street, Canton; 5. Kung-kwa at On-na, Lew-Chew; 6. Mia or road side chapel at Yokuhama; 7. Temple of Ben-teng in the harbor of Simoda; 8. Street and bridge at Simoda; 9. Temple of the Ha-tshu Man-ya-tshu-ro at Simoda; 10. Grave yard at Simoda Dio Zenge.

William Heine served as the official artist on Commodore Matthew C. Perry's 1853-1854 expedition to Japan. On his return to the United States, he produced several series of prints: a group of 6 elephant folio prints in 1855, and the present work in 1856. For his works, he employed Sarony, probably the best lithography firm in the United States at the time.  Copies were produced on regular paper and in the deluxe form, as the present copy. Bennett, American Nineteenth-Century Color Plate Books, 53 ("Obviously several copies must have been preserved, but the one described seems to be the only one yet offered for public sale").