This lot is closed for bidding. Bidding ended on 2/25/2023
COLBURN, Zerah (1804 -39). ZerAh Colburn. London: Henry Meyer, 1813. Full-length stipple-engraved portrait of the lightning calculator and child prodigy, “From a drawing by T. Hull Esq. in the possession of F Baily, Esq.” holding a battledore and shuttlecock. 15 x 13”. Margins scuffed and skinned, old mounting tape, else good. This image was used as the frontispiece to Colburn’s Memoir in a much smaller format. Rare; the first example we have encountered. The caption below the likeness well summarizes Colburn’s miraculous nature: “A child just eight years of age endowed with the remarkable faculty of solving a great variety of arithmetical questions by the operation of his mind.” Below the caption is the printed statement: “A printed account of the child is delivered with the portrait.” This was likely a sheet of similar size, giving further details on Colburn’s remarkable abilities. His life story, written “by himself” was published in America twenty years later.