Audubon's Fifty Best Octavo Prints

Published by Oppenheimer Editions

IMAGE GALLERY

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PRICE LIST

Audubon's Fifty Best Octavo Prints offers collectors an opportunity to own exact limited edition replicas of the original 1840 Royal Octavo Edition published by John James Audubon. The total edition is limited to 500 hundred sets. The first 250 sets will be sold as complete sets. Prints 251 through 500 of each image are available as individual prints. Except for the Oppenheimer Editions embossed stamp, these prints are indistinguishable from the original antique prints and frame beautifully.

Individual prints range from $200 to $300      

Complete Sets of All Fifty Prints $7500

Set of Twenty-Five Prints $4000

Introductory Set Price for All Fifty prints $6500

Introductory Set Price for Twenty-five prints $3500

Audubon's desire to make his work more affordable and widely available prompted him to begin the first Octavo edition, printed and hand colored by J.T. Bowen in Philadelphia. One-eighth the size of the original engravings of  The Birds of America, these miniatures exhibit a remarkable amount of attention to quality and detail, as well as a meticulous fidelity to the larger works.

Employing a new invention called the camera lucida, the images were reduced in size and then drawn onto lithographic stones. Some compositional changes were made, in order to accommodate the smaller size. Audubon's first Octavo edition, like the Havell edition, was sold by subscription and distributed five at a time. However, unlike the double elephant originals, the lithographs were issued in correct species, or phylogenic order. These prints also bear the plate number in the upper right hand corner and the subscription number in the upper left.