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Show ABSTRACT During the years 1832 to 1834, the German naturalist Prince Maximilian zu Wied led an expedition across America to the Upper Missouri. The description of this journey, Travels into the Interior of North America, published after his return to Europe, culminated in one of the most significant collections of ethnological information available concerning the nineteenth-century American Plains Indian. The book was illustrated with eighty-one aquatints, the work of Karl Bodmer, a Swiss artist who accompanied Maximilian on his expedition. This paper is an interdisciplinary examination of four of the aquatints Bodmer produced. It draws upon information extracted from the fields of art, ethnology, and history. Although certainly works of art, the prints have been traditionally viewed as documents; little art historical analysis has ever been attempted. Through the examination, in which detailed comparisons of the watercolors produced by Bodmer during the expedition and his subsequent aquatint illustrations are made, the documentary and artistic value of the prints emerge. At the same time, the criteria by which the aquatints have been historically interpreted are reexamined. The findings lead to the conclusion that all former assumptions regarding these works of art and their place in historical, ethnological, and art historical research must be reevaluated. |