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Show changes in the aquatints. As these avenues were presented for investigation, the next several years were spent gathering information. A careful examination of the Maximilian papers at Joslyn and of the large collection of aquatints housed there served to expand the information-base then extant concerning the prints' production. A questionnaire was sent to one hundred institutions likely to hold collections of the aquatints; the response significantly increased the resources for comparisons. Publication in 1984 of Joslyn's Karl Bodmer's America, in which Bodmer's watercolors were reproduced in their entirety for the first time, made detailed comparisons of the aquatints and the primary documents possible for the first time. The identification of additional source materials, located principally at the Newberry Library in Chicago, expanded the inquiry further. Bodmer's artistic background and personality began to emerge through investigations of the nineteenth-century European travelbook industry, and through Bodmer's later work, produced after his return to Europe. As the quantity of material for comparison grew, the impact of nineteenth-century science upon the production of the aquatints also became clearer. All of the accumulating information was simply preliminary, however, for it also became evident that, in the end, the aquatints would ultimately have to speak for themselves. The format chosen for this paper reflects the chronology of the research. Information progressively builds, as each of the four selected aquatints are examined. The preliminary examination of Tableau 25, Idols of the Mandan Indians, represents the initial observations of the inquiry, in which attempts xii |