SPEKE'S STOOL GIVEN TO KING MTESA

No VAT will be charged on the hammer price, but VA… Read more

Details

SPEKE'S STOOL GIVEN TO KING MTESA

A metal camping stool, with stripped cloth seat over covering a simple canvas material, open 330 x 330mm., height 300mm., the cloth seast with a few holes, stained and dusty, the metal feet rusty. Together with a copy of Speke's work Journal of the Discovery of the Source of the Nile. Edinburgh and London: William Blackwood, 1864. 8° (221 x 139mm). Engraved frontispiece portrait, 24 plates, folding lithographic map printed in blue and black, wood-engraved illustrations. (Slight tear to map, some thumb soiling, occasional creasing of corners and short marginal tears.) Original green cloth with vignettes stamped in gilt and contrasting decoration in black, uncut. Provenance: occasional scoring in pencil or pen, and annotation on p. 315 and 446; 2-leaf manuscript table of distances in Egypt and Sudan, in Stanley's hand, on paper headed '2, Richmond Terrace, Whitehall, S.W.,' loosely inserted. Second edition. (2)

Special notice

No VAT will be charged on the hammer price, but VAT at 17.5% will be added to the buyer's premium which is invoiced on a VAT inclusive basis

Lot Essay

An extraordinary survival of a camping stool given by Speke to King Mtesa of Uganda on 4th July 1862. Grant and Speke also gave Mtesa a rifle and ammunition as well, and in return he offered hundreds of cows, Speke accepting 5 cows and a goat. On Stanley's arrival in July 1875, the stool was passed on to Stanley. Stanley wrote in the margin of his copy of the second edition of Speke's Journal, 1864, p.446 'This chair I have now'.

More from THE AFRICAN SALE INCLUDING HENRY MORTON STANLEY COLLECTION

View All