| OCR Text |
Show 101 eighty-one aquatints were produced in imperial folio, averaging in size approximately forty-four by sixty centimenters.2^ Between four and five prints were distributed to subscribers with each fascicle of text; twenty fascicles, completed the German subscription. The thirty-three vignettes were intended for subscribers to insert into the binding of the German text and many of the existing examples of these have been cropped, reflecting the smaller format. The forty-eight tableaus were to be bound separately.2^ The cost of the German subscription ranged in price from ninety-five to two hundred Rhine thalers, reflecting the five different subscription options offered to the public.28 In the least expensive edition all the prints were uncolored; a second edition was composed of uncolored chine colle prints; a medium-range edition offered subscribers sixty-one uncolored and twenty handcolored prints; the fourth edition included sixty-one uncolored chine colle and twenty colored, and for the most costly fifth edition all of the eighty-one prints were handcolored.29 While Holscher printed the German text in Coblenz, the prints were produced in Paris, where Bodmer set up a studio in the winter of 1836 and enlisted the services of a group of etchers who worked on the copperplates under his direct supervision. The completed copperplates were then printed by the Parisian firm of Bougeard.^O Bodmer, undoubtedly, was also involved in the choice of papers used for the printing of the aquatints. He selected imperial vellum paper, a buff-colored hot press laminate, as the paper most suitable for the handcolored prints because it accepted watercolor readily and evenly. Ordinary "royal" paper was used for all the uncolored prints, both |
