the study: plates from The Quadrupeds of North America octavo edition: 1851, 1851, 1854 In this part of the study we present a complete set of 1st edition octavo plates from The Quadrupeds of North America. We hope you enjoy them. The links to the plates are located at the bottom of this page along with a few sample thumbnails. We have organized the plates in rows of five, each row representing a part or fascicle, in order to convey how they were delivered to subscribers. The first two pages show Volume I (Plates 1-50), the second two pages show volume II (Plates 51-100), and the last two pages show volume III (Plates 101-155). Because there are many images on each page, pages may take a long time to load even though the thumbnails are small. The remainder of the text on this page describes the artist and printer credits for this particular set of the quadrupeds. In the part of the study covering the Imperial Folio edition, we discuss changes between the folio and octavo quadruped editions with regard to the artist credited for each plate. Rather than repeat the information here, we summarize the division of credit by volume. Consistent with the Imperial Folio edition, all plates in Volume I of the octavo edition are credited to John James Audubon as artist. In Volume II of the octavo edition, 29 plates are credited to the elder Audubon, while 21 are credited to his son John Woodhouse Audubon. This represents a gain of 13 plates for John Woodhouse when compared to the credits in the Imperial Folio edition. Finally, all plates in Volume III are credited to John Woodhouse, with the four plates originally credited to John James Audubon in the folio edition all being reassigned. We indicate authorship and changes between folio and octavo editions in the pages showing the plates. At the time the Audubons wished to begin issuing the work, John Bowen, the printer and lithographer they had worked with on the folio edition and the octavo edition of Birds of America, was backed up with other work. Thus the work was begun under the auspices of the printing firm of Nagel & Weingaertner of New York. This firm was apparently responsible for producing the first run of anywhere from 29 to 31 of the first plates. Among the peculiarities of our set is its inclusion of 29 plates by Nagel & Weingaertner. We believe the Nagel & Weingaertner versions represent the first state of these plates, while the J. T. Bowen versions of the same plates (at least some of which can be found in many first edition sets), we believe to be second or later states. The two exceptions out of the first 31 plates in our set are Plate XXVI Wolverine and Plate XXVII Long-haired Squirrel. We have not yet ascertained whether Nagel & Weingaertner ever printed a version of these two plates. If anyone has any information on the printing history of these or any of the other plates, please contact us. Interestingly, the first state of Plates IV and V in our set do not have any trace of a background tint. While the first three plates show the animals in landscapes, these two plates show the animals on vignetted tree trunks. In terms of their clean and simple look, they remind us of the many plates in the first octavo edition of Birds of America that did not include landscapes. Plate VII Carolina Grey Squirrel is the first plate without a landscape into which the tint was introduced. It would be interesting to know if the omission of the tint in Plates IV and V was a mistake, or if the decision to use a tint on all plates, even those without a landscape background, was taken after the plates of Part 1 were completed by Nagel & Weingaertner. The decision to use a tint turns out to have been an extremely important one, not only affecting the look of the quads series, but ultimately affecting the aesthetic quality of all subsequent editions of The Birds of America. Even in the folio-sized Bien Edition, the use of a background tint for images without a landscape became the norm.
Last updated 02.28.09 |
||||||||||||||
