Prang's Civil War pictures

"During the 1880s - the peak years of the first wave of sentimental recollection of the American Civil War - a German-born, Boston-based picture publisher successfully commissioned the most ambitious series of battle prints ever published. Louis Prang, best known as the "father of the Christmas card," hired noted military and marine artists to create original scenes of armies and navies in combat, and then reproduced their works in a wildly popular portfolio of chromolithographs. He called the set Prang's War Pictures. They were offered to an eager public accompanied by "Descriptive Texts" that told the story of each engagement through eyewitness recollections by the heroes of each action.". "Paintings by battle painter Thure de Thulstrup and naval specialist Julian Oliver Davidson were commissioned by Prang as models for his ambitious chromolithographs. The set proved both appealing and influential, selling vigorously in various editions for a generation and elevating the stature of military illustration in America. For twenty years, Civil War prints for the masses had featured uninspired, one-dimensional views of armies in hand-to-hand combat. Prang and his artists demonstrated genuine skill and imaginative perspective, revealing both the broad sweep of panoramic battle fields and the intimate action of individual combatants.". "These chromos went on to become familiar illustrations in books and magazines, but until now, the complete set of eighteen chromos has never been collected in a single volume. And the original "Descriptive Texts," first offered to Prang's customers as marketing brochures to boost sales - a priceless historical archive in and of themselves - have never been published since, anywhere. The pictures and the texts are thus united here for the first time in book form."--BOOK JACKET.