Page 50 - joa 2-2020

More on Audubon Art

he following letter was sent to the editor of the Journal of Antiques art (it is certainly valuable), then you would have to consider my drab little
Tand Collectibles in reference to my article in the October 2019 feeble warbler fine art. It isn’t.
issue. In it, one of the country’s top dealers in Audubon art takes I also take exception to the casual statement that “The watermark is not
exception to my friend Ken Callahan of Callahan and Co. Booksellers embossed but is seen when the piece is examined under the light”. A watermark
who called them prints. is a design woven into or applied to the screen used to remove paper pulp from
the vat in which it is in suspension. You see the watermark along with the
Hi Judy - My husband and I have collected original Audubon art since the late horizontal and vertical wire marks left by the screen in the paper after the pulp
sixties (when I was in college). Just a few FYIs about “prints.” has been pressed and dried to make the paper. A watermark is a watermark.
We never refer to fine art pieces as “prints.” For example, the original An “embossed watermark” isn’t a watermark at all – it is an embossed design.
Audubon productions (the original London produced Havell edition and a Saying all of that, Pat Raynock clearly knows
couple of Lizars plates) were engravings that more about prints than I do, and all I am doing
were hand-colored after removing each piece is quibbling about small points. Want to buy an
from the press, the second edition (the Bien authentic Audubon plate? I am pretty sure that it
edition produced in New York) were lithographs depicts Bachman’s feeble least warbler, molting.
– color being applied in the process with some Ken.
hand coloring of details after the pieces came off
the lithographic stones. The colorists who Merriam Webster defines a print as made by
applied watercolor to the original Havell impressing paper against an inked printing
engravings were highly skilled artists and were surface which describes how these first
paid to exactly reproduce the colors of the Audubon reproductions were made. The
original art onto the engravings. outlines of the birds were printed, but the
The paper used was a heavy rag paper, colors were then filled in by hand like a high-
generally unavailable in America in the early quality 1820s-30s paint by numbers picture.
1800s, and one of several reasons that the These first Audubon copies were not hand-
production was done in London. Both of these colored by Audubon either, but mostly by the
editions of the Birds of America are valuable, printmaker Robert Havell Jr. who engraved
with the Havell commanding the highest price many of the printing plates based on
at market. Both engraving and early lithography Audubon’s original one-of-a-kind watercolors.
were tedious and time-consuming and the only And there is nothing wrong with that – prints
way multiples could be produced in their respec- can certainly be art. No argument there!

tive eras. Regardless of how the color appears, the
only way to really authenticate original Editor’s (Judy’s) Note: As a semi-profession-
Audubon’s is to find the watermark – it will al artist, I can truly attest to the expertise needed
always be a Whatman or Whatman Turkey to do an exacting colorization from an original
Mill watermark and also carry the date of the work of art, even if it is done on a “paint-by-
paper in the watermark. The watermark is not numbers” outline printed on fine art paper. The
embossed but is seen when the piece is examined big difference is, of course, the “colorist” must be
under a light. a master in the art medium such as watercolor to
As time has unfolded and the industry Here is a photo of Ken’s Audubon print/artwork create an exacting replica. Knowing how to mix
progressed, many other ways of producing color, blend, create shadow and light, make
Audubon’s art have become possible. It’s pretty easy to detect modern reproduc- corrections, understanding how the paper responds to different densities of
tions because they have dot matrices throughout the colored areas and these pigments, etc., takes immense training and years of practice to correctly apply
pieces, no matter how good their quality, are just decorative reproductions and this skill to this form. Sorry, Ken, but even fine works of watercolor art were
of little value (even though they’re sold for sometimes quite a bit of money.) and are often created on watermarked artist paper, whether it looks embossed
I hope this is helpful, or not. The definition of fine art is always in flux, but for me, if an artist has
Pat Raynock, Flower Field Farm, Upper Bucks Co., Pennsylvania put his/her skilled hand to these first prints, they qualify.

And here is Ken’s reply to me after seeing the email – Learn more about Audubon Art from Pat in our upcoming “Inspired by
Nature” June issue.
Dear Jim;
Here are a few thoughts: the letter from Pat Raynock was quite infor- Update to my article “A Ten Million Dollar Fake” in the November,
mative, but I think that it is improper to call Audubon prints “fine art.” They 2019 issue which was about forged Galileo booklets –
were, after all, mass-produced and colored commercially. None of them is On Sunday Nov. 20, CBS’ “60 Minutes” aired a segment about forged
unique. My wife and I own an original Audubon print, and it isn’t fine art, Columbus letters. And guess who is the prime suspect? The same guy
just a dull picture of a dull little bird (I forget which one, but one that is who went to jail for forging the Galileo booklets. None other than
not memorable). Massimo de Caro.
The leaf is properly watermarked “Whatman”, but it is a really unremark-
James Dawson has owned and operated the Unicorn Bookshop in Trappe, MD since
able picture. She bought it in a junk shop in Florida for $20, and other than 1975, when he decided it would be more fun to buy and sell old books and maps than to
the novelty of owning an original Audubon print, it is nothing special. If you get a “real” job. For this born collector, having a shop just might be another excuse to buy
consider the magnificent Audubon print of the Great Horned Owl to be fine more books. He has about 30,000 second hand and rare books on the shelves, and just
about all subjects are represented. Reach him at P.O. Box 154; Trappe, MD 21673;
410-476-3838; unicornbookshopMD@gmail.com; www.unicornbookshop.com
48 Journal of Antiques and Collectibles