“Columbus In His Study”, Vignette Die Proof by Henry Gugler, BEP

Henry Gugler’s elaborate vignette of Columbus in his Study that was adapted for the face of the $1000 Legal Tender notes of 1869-1880 on India paper mounted on card. This detailed engraving depicts a seated Columbus with open books, manuscripts, charts and a globe scattered around him.

Johann Heinrich “Henry” Gugler was born September 27th 1816 in Untertuerkheim, Wuerttemberg, Germany. At the age of fifteen he began an apprenticeship in the arts, specializing in metal engraving; he would become one of the top metal engravers in Germany. Henry Gugler immigrated to the United States in 1853 with his wife and six-year-old son Julius at the invitation of a fellow engraver who had earlier settled in this country. Gugler had studied art and had twenty-two years experience in metal engraving in Germany where he prepared book illustrations, zoological studies and city views. He found work with a New York firm specializing in bank note engraving. By the early 1860s he began working at the National Note Bureau, later the Federal agency known as the Bureau of Engraving and Printing in Washington, D.C. In 1863, the Bureau of Engraving and Printing hired Henry as one of their first vignette engravers.

Note: this is an ORIGINAL nineteenth century die-sunk proof; not a reproduction or contemporary print. Your satisfaction is guaranteed.