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From Life, Drawings
While traveling, Audubon invented a `tà{xÅtà|vá ãtá {tÜw? wâÄÄ ãÉÜ~A ZxÉzÜtÑ{ç ÑÄxtáxw
method using wires and pins to hang the
specimens he collected so that they could be
drawn in natural poses rather than in the Åx ÅÉÜxA YÉÜ wtÇv|Çz \ ãtá Öâ|àx xÇà{âá|táà|vA „ ]A]ATA
standard taxidermy positions being used by
other naturalists of his time. His original collec- was left to the recipients to have the manuscript bound into 100-page
tion of mixed-media watercolors were painted life-size, and he decided volumes during the production. Audubon oversaw the production
when it came time to translate these works into engravings, each sheet and was known to be a devilish critic of the artisans working on the
should carry a different species presented with life-size, pages, hounding and harassing them if the coloring was imperfect on a
hand-colored engravings. The American publishers at particular pull. It is generally thought that although there were only
this time had little access to the materials this large folio about 160 original subscribers listed by Audubon in the ornithological
of work would require, and with no financial backing, biography, there may have been additional sheets produced and that
Audubon found no support in America to produce his some pages may have been printed in greater numbers.
work. Audubon then decided to pack his watercolors Today there are no more than possibly 90 complete sets of the
into trunks and traveled to Europe to find both paper book that still exist intact, with many of the original sets destroyed in
and an engraver to translate his art into book form. war, fires or natural disasters, or broken apart and distributed to heirs
In his single-minded determination, Audubon had over time or sold. It is not known how many single sheets of any page
persevered through criticisms of American ornithologists may still exist outside of the bound copies, but it is assumed that the
on his artistic, rather than “scientific," representations number is less than thirty.
of birds, and found support overseas to publish the
monumental work. Europeans were eager to learn about Knowing What You Have
the “wild” America and recognized the artistic talent on Since there are literally millions of copies of pages from The Birds of
display in his representations of the wildlife of the America, ranging from high-quality reproductions to poster grade
American continent. decorations, how do we track down and preserve those rare original
His Birds of America publication, a four-volume
elephant folio documentation of 435 species of birds, sheets that may still exist? Over the 200 years since their production,
their origins may have been obscured as they have moved through time
remains the most – treasured by one owner and then relegated to the attic by another.
expensive book ever As curators of these pages, there are a few earmarks that will identify
published, with the each sheet to us. The most valuable of these is the watermark on each
last complete set
resold at auction in page. Only seen when a page is held to the light, each 27” x 39” sheet
2018 for $9.65 carries the “J. Whatman” or “J. Whatman Turkey Mill” watermark
million. The Birds and the date of the paper, say, “1829” following the watermark.
of America took 11 The paper is a heavy rag stock paper made in the two Whatman
years to complete brothers mills in England and thusly bears the trademarks of either of
and only 165 sets of the production mills.
the book were pub- One can also look for other identifying markers on these pages as
lished from 1827- well, like checking that the pages are actually hand-colored over the
1838. The pages of black engravings. It’s a dead giveaway that you have a copy if you look
the book were sent at a prospective sheet with a magnifying glass and see a dot matrix
to subscribers five providing the color to the page. One can also verify the size of the
sheets at a time as image and the plate marks that are seen on the sheets by comparing
the engravings were them against well-documented descriptions that can be found on the
completed, and it internet. I have found one of the most informative of these being the
University of Pittsburgh’s Audubon collection statistics.

Previous page, upper right:
Making double-sized Elephant paper by hand,
measuring around 39.5” by 26.5”
(photo: vintagepaper.co)

Above:
J Whatman, the Master of Western
Papermaking
(photo: vintagepaper.co)

Right:
Sotheby’s employee Mary Engleheart looks at a
volume of Audubon’s Birds of America in
London, 2010 Audubon painted the 5’ reddish-
pink bird with its head lowered, which allowed
him to paint the flamingo at nearly life-size,
considering he was working on a double
elephant folio – each page was nearly 40” tall.

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