Martin Bernatz. "Mirage in the Valley of Dillul." Pl. IV. From Scenes in Ethiopia.
Munich: M. Bernatz and London: F.G. Moon, 1852. ca. 9 3/4 x 14 1/2. Folio. Tinted lithograph by Leop. Rottmann.
Martin Bernatz was an artist attached to the British Embassy to the Court of Shoa in Southern Abyssinia. Along with Sir William C. Harris, Bernatz traveled into the highlands of Ethiopia. Prints after his sketches appeared along with some after drawings by Harris in a volume issued in 1844. In 1852, Bernatz brought out his own volume of illustrations of the expedition, published in Munich and London. These excellent images show scenes of the then still relatively untouched life in Ethiopia. They provide one of the most accurate and interesting series of images of the interior Africa to appear in the nineteenth century.