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Show PREFACE One of the earliest and most important collections of ethnological information available concerning the American Plains Indian was compiled as a result of the German naturalist Prince Maximilian zu Wied's expedition to the Upper Missouri, undertaken from 1832 to 1834. The description of this journey, Travels in the Interior of North America, published upon Maximilian's return to Europe, includes eighty-one aquatint illustrations of this expedition. These prints are the work of Karl Bodmer (1809-1893), a young, Swiss artist hired to accompany Maximilian on his trip across America. The following is an interdisciplinary investigation of four of Bodmer's American aquatints and draws upon information extracted from the fields of art, ethnology and history. The prints are not only the subject of the investigation, they also determine the course the investigation will take. The methodology that develops from the examination is related directly to the way in which the prints have been viewed in the past. Although principally works of art, the aquatints, ignored by art historians, have always been employed as documents. That these prints are truly documents in the fullest sense will be born out through the investigation. Bodmer's aquatints not only document the events of Maximilian's expedition; they are also documents of how these prints have always been examined and interpreted. Ultimately, how the aquatints have been read tells as much or more about the history of research |