Sold for $5,000

Lithograph on heavy paper, 610 x 480 mm. (Fully backed in japan tissue, a few minor losses with repairs occasionally affecting image or text, creased where formerly folded, separations along those creases.) Provenance: Acquired Dorothy Sloan (11 December 2009, Sale 22, lot 227). 

THE FIRST LITHOGRAPHED POLITICAL CARTOON CREATED IN TEXAS. The lithograph was printed when Sam Houston's political career was in shambles. Shortly after the publication of this cartoon, Houston failed in his reelection bid for the U. S. Senate, and in a run for the Texas Governor's office.  In the cartoon, Houston is seen walking on the Constitution, the Declaration of Independence, and the Bill of Rights.  He carries a "Net for Gudgeons," the handle of which is strung with a gun and knife ("Sam's Logic or reasoning powers"), a heart ("Sam's 'Great American heard,' sore"), and a mask ("Mask of Washington," "Worn when assuming to be the Savior of the Country").  He carries a lantern "used by Gui [Guy] Fawkes in his midnight plots, and bequested to [Houston's] father." 

The print was one of three lithographs, all created by Thielepape, considered to be among the first lithographs created in Texas.  These three documented Thielepape lithographs pulled in Texas also include the letter sheet with a view of Alamo Plaza (see previous lot). When the present copy was sold by Dorothy Sloan, she located only two other copies of the lithograph: one at the Center for American history at the University of Texas, and one at the Dallas Historical Society. She quoted the unpublished research of Ron Tyler: "The first lithographs that can be documented as having been made in Texas appeared in San Antonio... Wilhelm C.A. Thielepape, a trained surveyor and recent immigrant with no printing experience, pulled the first lithograph from a Texas press in 1855. It was a crude map of San Antonio. He printed at least two other images, this caricature of Sam Houston and the other a view of the San Antonio plaza, before finally abandoning the badly worn lithographic equipment and closing his shop."