Pancha Tantra
Cologne: Taschen, 2009. First trade edition.
Folio (14 5/8” x 11”, 372mm x 290mm): pp. 1-7 (epigram, illustration, title, 2pp. illustration, illustration, contents) 8-320. Illustrated throughout.
Bound in the publisher’s blind-stamped brown cloth with the gilt-stamped pictorial dust-wrapper.
Near fine, with a little shelf-wear. Signed by Ford on the title-page in black marker, with a drawing of a rhinoceros above.
Walton Ford (b. 1960), hailed as the modern Audubon, has come to the forefront of American artists working in the natural-history milieu. His large watercolors draw on the visual lexicon of Merian and Catesby, Audebert and Gould, and enter discourse with colonialism, environmentalism and various social causes. Represented at the time of publication (in a limited edition of 2007) by Paul Kasmin, Ford is now with Gagosian. On the secondary market, his works on paper sell in excess of $1.4M.
Pancha Tantra (पञ्चतन्त्र, Sanskrit for “five treatises”) is the title of a series of animal fables that dates perhaps to the third century of the modern era. Indeed, some scholars have linked the work to the fables of Aesop. Ford uses it as an organizing principle for his anthropomorphized animal paintings, which are reproduced both in full and in detail with Taschen’s typically high fidelity. The introduction by Bill Buford (b. 1954) — in English, French and German — celebrates Ford’s winking non-modernity and links him to Orwell, Borges and other modern masters.
Item #JLR0892
Price: $1,800