Common or Arctic Puffin, Plate 464 from the royal octavo edition of The Birds of America
Item
Title
Common or Arctic Puffin,
Plate 464 from the royal octavo edition of The Birds of America
Plate 464 from the royal octavo edition of The Birds of America
Creator
Ralph Trembly
American, 1817–after 1863
After John James Audubon
American, b. Haiti, 1785–1851
Printed by John T. Bowen
American, b. England, c. 1801–1856
American, 1817–after 1863
After John James Audubon
American, b. Haiti, 1785–1851
Printed by John T. Bowen
American, b. England, c. 1801–1856
Date
1840-44
Materials
Lithograph with hand coloring
Measurements
6-11/16 x 10-1/4 in. (16.9 x 26.1 cm)
Description
Although a critical success, the double elephant folio of The Birds of America was quite an expensive venture. The subscriptions, most garnered in Europe, barely covered the cost of its production. As a result, as soon as Audubon returned from England in 1839, he and his sons, Victor and John Woodhouse, began working on a more moderate version that could be sold for a lower price to a much wider audience. Using the double elephant folio as a model, they employed a camera lucida to reduce the images to a size slightly larger than the standard octavo sheet of paper, which they designated “royal octavo.” The contracted drawings were then passed on to a Philadelphia firm run by John T. Bowen, whose stable of commercial artists transferred them onto lithographic stones for printing. Once they came off the press, the sheets were hand decorated in an assembly line manner by as many as seventy colorists in Bowen’s shop.
Because of the smaller size, all the double elephant prints containing multiple species were separated into compositions featuring a single variety per sheet. This, plus the addition of nineteen new birds, brought the total number of plates to 500. As with the Havell edition, the royal octavo version was issued in parts consisting of five prints each. With two parts appearing every month, it took nearly five years, from early 1840 through the end of 1844, for Bowen to complete the project.
The octavo edition of The Birds of America was a huge financial success. By the time the final prints rolled off Bowen’s presses, the Audubon’s had secured 1,200 subscriptions. Sold for $100 per set, the prints earned the family $120,000, which in today’s economy would amount to well over $3.5 million.
Object inscriptions: top left corner: No. 93.; top right corner: Pl. 464.; bottom center: R.T. / Common or Arctic Puffin. / 1, Male. 2, Female.; bottom left corner: Drawn from Nature by J.J. Audubon, F.R.S.F.L.S.; bottom right corner: Lith Printed & Col.d by J.T. Bowen, Philad.a
Because of the smaller size, all the double elephant prints containing multiple species were separated into compositions featuring a single variety per sheet. This, plus the addition of nineteen new birds, brought the total number of plates to 500. As with the Havell edition, the royal octavo version was issued in parts consisting of five prints each. With two parts appearing every month, it took nearly five years, from early 1840 through the end of 1844, for Bowen to complete the project.
The octavo edition of The Birds of America was a huge financial success. By the time the final prints rolled off Bowen’s presses, the Audubon’s had secured 1,200 subscriptions. Sold for $100 per set, the prints earned the family $120,000, which in today’s economy would amount to well over $3.5 million.
Object inscriptions: top left corner: No. 93.; top right corner: Pl. 464.; bottom center: R.T. / Common or Arctic Puffin. / 1, Male. 2, Female.; bottom left corner: Drawn from Nature by J.J. Audubon, F.R.S.F.L.S.; bottom right corner: Lith Printed & Col.d by J.T. Bowen, Philad.a
Source
Palmer Museum of Art, The Pennsylvania State University, Gift of Joyce Gordon and Paul Lubetkin
Identifier
2013.59
Rights
This image is posted publicly for non-profit educational uses, excluding printed publication. Other uses are not permitted.