Audubon Bowen Octavo Pl. 141, American Black Bear

Enliven your environment with this Audubon Bowen Octavo Pl. 141, American Black Bear!

This modern edition octavo is printed with archival pigments on 100% rag watercolor paper and meticulously proofed to directly capture the artist’s hand and fundamental vision. The miniature size and delightful imagery of Audubon’s Octavos make for excellent groupings and solitary displays alike. This print is part of a limited edition of 500.

About The Viviparous Quadrupeds of North America

Initially published as large-scale lithographs between 1845 and 1848, the Viviparous Quadrupeds of North America was a collaborative project between John James Audubon, his two sons, and the renowned naturalist Reverend John Bachman. The folio was the first comprehensive attempt to document the four-legged land mammals of North America.

The Royal Octavo edition of Audubon’s Viviparous Quadrupeds of North America captures his iconic images of North American mammals in miniature form. The smaller Octavo version of Audubon’s folio was popular for its relative affordability and portable scale. All 150 of Audubon’s miniature octavo edition prints from the Viviparous Quadrupeds of North America are faithfully reproduced to the exact size, color, and specifications by Oppenheimer Editions.

About John James Audubon

America’s most revered artist-naturalist, John James Audubon (1785—1851), is renowned for his extraordinary undertaking to visually record the birds and mammals of North America. His publications The Birds of America & The Viviparous Quadrupeds of North America are icons of 19th-century art and capture the nascent stages of American natural history.

Born in 1785 in Les Cayes, Santo Domingo (Haiti) to a Creole mother and French father, Audubon spent the early years of his life in France but moved to America at age 18. It was during this time that his appreciation for birds flourished and he developed a keen artistic acumen for rendering wildlife. It was not until 1819 when Audubon was married and the father of two sons, that he embraced the life of artist-naturalist and embarked on his venture through the backwoods of America with the intent of illustrating the avian life he encountered there.

Audubon’s muti-decade venture resulted in the publication of his monumental folio The Birds of America which documented over 700 bird species on 435 plates. In a similar manner and with the help of his two sons and his friend Reverend John Bachman, Audubon later produced The Viviparous Quadrupeds of North America, which contained 150 plates depicting the mammals of North America. Audubon’s folios were seismic in the fields of ornithology and mammalogy and set a new precedent for natural history illustration.

About Oppenheimer Editions

Established in 1999, our publishing company Oppenheimer Editions was developed in order to produce modern facsimiles of historic works of art. Marrying cutting-edge digital printing technologies with canonical works of art, Oppenheimer Editions has partnered with prestigious museums to make their holdings accessible to the public as fine art prints. Works from the New-York Historical Society’s unrivaled collections of John James Audubon’s watercolors and the Hudson River School paintings are examples of art that otherwise would be unobtainable.

Among the institutional collections we have partnered with are the American Museum of Natural History, the Field Museum, and the Royal Botanic Gardens at Kew. Our Oppenheimer Editions prints are not mere reproductions. Rather, they are limited-edition fine art prints made with the finest quality archival pigments on rag watercolor paper and executed to exacting standards.

For more information about Audubon Bowen Octavo Pl. 141, American Black Bear, email us at [email protected] or check out our articles Discovering Audubon’s Animals in The Viviparous Quadrupeds of North America and Visualizing the Human Impact on the Natural World in Audubon’s Quadrupeds.

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