In 1832, Karl Bodmer met Prince Alexander Philipp Maximilian, ruler of the small state of Neuwied, Prussia (now part of Germany).   Known as Prince Maximilian of Wied, or Prince Max, Maximilian was a German explorer, naturalist and ethnographer searching for a draftsman to accompany him to North America.   He selected Bodmerfor the expedition to the Great Plains region of the United States, along the Missouri River.  Prince Max had led another well publicized expedition to South America, and the North American trip was to bring more notice with the publication of the 3 volume book from which these pictures were scanned. Of the many images he made from the trip, 81 were reproduced as aquatints for the book.  Scenes include subjects from the entire journey, from Boston, through New York and Pennsylvania, down the Ohio to Cairo, up the Mississippi to St. Louis, and all the way to the headwaters of the Missouri.  Bodmer's works from this trip were recognized as among the most painted images ever made of the region at that time, and included many depiction of local culture, artifacts and scenery. On the return trip they went via Cleveland, Lake Erie, and the Erie canal to Albany ...

This is another book I posted to the gallery quite a while ago, but I never got around to making a post here on the main page. Owen Jones (1809-1874) was a British architect, decorative artist, author and educator. Through his efforts to publish his findings on the historic use of colour in decoration, he also became one of the pioneers of chromolithography. He published many seminal and definitive works, including The Grammar of Ornament (1856), a highly influential book in ornamentation and decorative arts. The borders alone make this illuminated book memorable, and the illustrations are wonderful too. These images come from a completely disbound and very discolored, spotted and darkened copy I came across. I had to do a lot of image enhancement after the initial scans, and while I have restored most of the luster there may be some distortion from the original shades. This is seen on some of the matched borders, which originally were identical but are now slightly different in some of the images. In any case, the images and the borders could have a lot of uses, so feel free to download and use however you please.  These are all public domain as I did all ...