On the CBS Sunday Morning program, they had a nice segment about the rare flower photographs of Dr. Jonathan Singer, whose "Double Elephant Folio" is in the Smithsonian colection, along with Audubon's birds. (yes, I know he uses Hasselblad, not LF.)
I began to wonder just how big these famous prints are, since 30x40 or even larger digital photo prints are now common (although expensive to produce).
Audubon Size Designations:
Octavo refers to the size of a book or print that is 1/8 the size of a full sheet of paper, resulting from folding the paper to form 8 leaves. In the world of Audubon prints, octavos are approximately 6 1/2 x 10 3/4 inches for the birds and 7 x 10 1/2 inches for the quadrupeds. This is slightly larger than the page of a modern trade hardcover book.
Quarto refers to the size of a book or print that is 1/4 the size of a full sheet of paper, resulting from folding the paper to form 4 leaves. The quarto would typically range from a page size of 10 x 8 inches to 12 x 9 inches. There are no original Audubon prints in the quarto size.
Folio refers to the size of a book or print that is 1/2 of a full sheet of paper, resulting from folding the paper once to form 2 leaves. The folio size would typically range from 13 x 10 inches to 16 x 12 inches. There are no original Audubon prints in the folio size.
Above the folio size, paper sheets come in a variety of measurements. Elephant Folio refers to the size of the Audubon Imperial Quadruped prints, which are somewhat smaller than the double elephant folio size used for the Audubon Havell bird prints. Elephant folio prints measure approximately 22 x 28 inches.
The largest books and prints produced in the 19th century were in the Double Elephant Folio size. This is the paper used for the Audubon Havell and Bein bird prints, which measure approximately 26 1/2 x 39 inches. Only a few books have ever been produced on this scale, and thus Double Elephant Folio has become synonomous with Audubon’s great work.
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