{"title":"Audubon Prints","description":"\u003cp\u003eJohn James Audubon published \u003cem\u003eThe Birds of America\u003c\/em\u003e between 1827 and 1838 in the double elephant folio — sheets of about 97 × 65 cm, the largest format anyone had seriously attempted for a book. The plates were engraved, printed and hand-coloured in London by Robert Havell Jr. Around 120 complete sets are thought to survive.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eWhat these are.\u003c\/strong\u003e Giclée prints, made new from museum digitisations of Havell impressions. They are not nineteenth-century impressions and are not sold as such. Every product page names the holding institution and the plate number, and the file comes from that institution directly rather than from a stock library.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eThe plate is reproduced whole.\u003c\/strong\u003e Nothing is cropped to fill a frame size. Where Audubon set anatomical studies along the top edge — beaks seen in section, a webbed foot — they stay on the sheet, as does the engraved caption at the foot. Where a plate is larger than our largest sheet, it is reduced once, and the factor is stated on the product page.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eTwelve pigment inks on 200 gsm FSC-certified fine art paper, printed with a generous white border, ready to frame or mat. Unframed, shipped rolled in a tube.\u003c\/p\u003e","products":[{"product_id":"john-james-audubon-american-flamingo-1838-giclee-print","title":"John James Audubon – American Flamingo, 1838 | Giclée Print","description":"\u003cp\u003eAudubon drew the American Flamingo in 1838, near the end of \u003cem\u003eThe Birds of America\u003c\/em\u003e. The bird stands over four feet tall. The page he was working to — the double elephant folio, the largest book anyone had seriously attempted — measured about thirty-nine inches by twenty-six. It was not enough.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eSo he bent the bird. The flamingo lowers its head to the water in a curve that fills the sheet corner to corner, neck folded back on itself, the whole animal compressed into the only rectangle available. It is a solution to a printing problem, and it produced one of the most recognisable images in ornithology.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eAbove the bird, small and precise, Audubon set nine studies: the beak seen from several angles and opened in section, and the webbed foot. He was a hunter and a showman, but he was also keeping notes.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eThe plate was engraved and hand-coloured by Robert Havell Jr. in London. Audubon never saw a printing press in America produce it.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eScale\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\nMost print shops stretch any image onto any sheet without comment. We do not. Audubon's folio is larger than any sheet we print, so this one goes the other way: both sizes are reductions, and the factor is named.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cem\u003eOriginal: 65.1 × 97.2 cm \/ 25.6 × 38.3 in — double elephant folio, University of Pittsburgh\u003c\/em\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\n\u003cstrong\u003e50 × 70 cm \/ 19.7 × 27.6 in\u003c\/strong\u003e — 0.59× original\u003cbr\u003e\n\u003cstrong\u003e70 × 100 cm \/ 27.6 × 39.4 in\u003c\/strong\u003e — 0.82× original\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eThe sheets are metric. The inch figures are exact conversions, not US nominal sizes — the large one sits inside a standard 28 × 40 in frame with a few millimetres to spare.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eWhat is on the paper.\u003c\/strong\u003e Nothing is cropped. Pittsburgh photographed the whole folio leaf lying on a pale ground, and that is what we print: the plate entire, with the nine beak and foot studies along the top and the engraved caption at the foot, the leaf's own paper margin around it, its corners — dog-eared at the upper left, softened at the other three — and a band of the digitiser's ground beyond them, one and a half to two and a half centimetres wide depending on the size. It reads as what it is: a leaf out of a very large book, photographed flat.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eA correction, 3 September 2026.\u003c\/strong\u003e The two reductions were labelled 0.62× and 0.86× until that day. Those figures had been measured against the whole photographed rectangle, and the rectangle includes the ground. Measured against the leaf itself — 10264 by 15149 pixels of the museum's file, against the catalogued 65.1 by 97.2 cm — the true factors are 0.59× and 0.82×. The print has not changed; only the claim about it has.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eProvenance\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\nJohn James Audubon (1785–1851), \u003cem\u003eAmerican Flamingo; Greater Flamingo\u003c\/em\u003e, Plate CCCCXXXI from \u003cem\u003eThe Birds of America\u003c\/em\u003e, London 1827–1838; hand-coloured aquatint engraving after the watercolour of 1838, engraved, printed and coloured by Robert Havell Jr., sheet 97.2 × 65.1 cm \/ 38.25 × 25.625 in.\u003cbr\u003e\nDarlington Collection, Archives \u0026amp; Special Collections, University of Pittsburgh Library System, pitt:aud0431.\u003cbr\u003e\nThe work is in the public domain worldwide; the University of Pittsburgh publishes its digitisation under the rights statement “No Copyright – United States”.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eThe print\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\nGiclée on 200 gsm FSC-certified fine art paper, twelve pigment inks. White border, optical centre. The paper tone and hand-colouring of the original are kept, not corrected. Unframed. Shipped rolled in a tube.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Museartis","offers":[{"title":"50 × 70 cm \/ 19.7 × 27.6 in — Reduced, 0.59× original","offer_id":65758548132189,"sku":"MUS-003-5070","price":89.0,"currency_code":"CHF","in_stock":true},{"title":"70 × 100 cm \/ 27.6 × 39.4 in — Reduced, 0.82× original","offer_id":65742269579613,"sku":"MUS-003-70100","price":129.0,"currency_code":"CHF","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1102\/7139\/8237\/files\/audubon-american-flamingo-1838-giclee-print.webp?v=1788128631"}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1102\/7139\/8237\/collections\/audubon-flamingo-print-detail-head-and-bill.jpg?v=1788128766","url":"https:\/\/museartis.com\/collections\/audubon-prints.oembed","provider":"Museartis","version":"1.0","type":"link"}