Evolution in art, as illustrated by the life histories of designs

London : Walter Scott, Ltd., 1895. The Contemporary Science Series, edited by Havelock Ellis. First edition. Octavo (185 mm), publisher’s blind-blocked maroon cloth over boards lettered in gilt (lightly rubbed), spine titled in gilt (softened at the ends and with a couple of small marks); pp [4 publisher’s ads.], xviii, [2], 364, [14 ads.]; illustrated with 130 text figures and 8 plates; very occasional spotting, but a good copy; from The Papuan Collection of Charles Fletcher (Melbourne), his bookplate to the front free-endpaper.

Distinguished Cambridge anthropologist Alfred Cort Haddon (1855-1940) carried out important fieldwork in the Torres Strait and New Guinea and is famed for his contributions to the study of the indigenous cultures of these regions. In Evolution in art – an ambitious and fascinating work, similar in scope to archaeologist Flinders Petrie’s Decorative patterns of the ancient world (1930), which it very possibly inspired – Haddon sets out to trace the origins of motifs and designs in many different cultural milieus, largely drawing on examples from Melanesia, Polynesia, the Americas, Africa, and the ancient Near East and Europe.

Rare.