- Each copy comes in a silk-covered box illustrated with Neil Leifer's iconic 1966 photo, "Ali vs Williams. "- Bound by the official bindery for the Vatican, in pink leather, the color of Ali's first Cadillac. The bindery specializing in the most elaborate and oversized editions of the Koran and the Bible enforces the strictest standards of quality control and only several hundred copies can be assembled per week. - Utilizing state-of-the-art digital technology, no expense has been spared to restore the original photographic materials to the highest possible standards. The results of this effort create unparalleled intensity and range in the colors, and exquisite tone and density within the duotone images. - Eight-color printing on Galaxi Keramik 200gsm semi-matte paper with gloss varnish on all images.

that is considered to be the precursor to Aesop's Fables. Stories derived from many of the texts that served as the germinal seed for these paintings fill the book's appendix; and an original essay by New Yorker staff writer Bill Buford substantiates the notion that this contemporary artist is more than just one to watch, but one who will stand the test of time. Presented in a handsome clamshell box and limited to a total of 1,600 copies signed by the artist, Walton Ford: Pancha Tantra?available in both Art and Collector's Editions?belongs in any serious collector's library. Special features: ? Limited to 100 individually numbered copies, each signed by Walton Ford ? Accompanied by an original six-color intaglio print, Limed Blossoms, created by Walton Ford especially for this book with the cooperation of the Paul Kasmin Gallery, New York ? Printed on acid-free paper ? Finished with a sumptuous calf-leather leather cover with gold embossing ? Packaged in a luxurious calf-leather clamshell box The print: Limed Blossoms is a six-plate hardground etching, aquatint, spit-bite aquatint, drypoint etching with scraping and burnishing. The plate size is 30. 5 x 22. 9 cm (12 x 9 in. ) on 47 x 35. 6 cm (14 x 18. 5 in. ) paper. Working with master printer Peter Pettengill at Wingate Studio, New Hampshire in 2007, Ford used the traditional techniques of line etching, aquatint, drypoint etching, and spit-bite aquatint to make the print. The edition of 100 copies was printed by hand on 100%-cotton archival-quality Rives BFK paper, using an American French Tool etchingpress. Each print is numbered, and personally signed by the artist. About the artist: Walton Ford grew up in Westchester County, New York, in a family of gifted storytellers. As a child he was an amateur naturalist?collecting animals, hiking, fishing, and devoting much of his free time to examining and drawing the dioramas and specimens at the American Museum of Natural History in New York City. He completed his studies in filmmaking at the Rhode Island School of Design in 1982, but soon adapted his talent for storytelling to painting. His life-size watercolors, which at first glance appear to be in the vein of 19th-century natural-history painters like John J. Audubon or Edward Lear, are actually complexly layered fantasies depicting wild animals in unnatural settings and situations, and cite textual sources ranging from the letters of Benjamin Franklin to the journals of Leonardo da Vinci. Ford lived in New York City for most of the 1980s and ?90s?home base for personally and professional influential travels to countries including Italy, India, and Mexico?and for some years supported himself as a wood refinisher, carpenter, metalworker, and illustrator, while developing his craft and audience. His work has been exhibited widely since 1987 at private galleries and public institutions including The Whitney Museum, The Brooklyn Museum, the Paul Kasmin Gallery in New York, Michael Cohn Gallery in Los Angeles. He has been awarded a John Simon Guggenheim fellowship and grants from the National Endowment for the Arts and the New York Foundation for the Arts, among others. He now lives, works, and hikes in the Berkshire Hills of Massachusetts. About the author: Bill Buford was the fictioneditor of the New Yorker for eight years, where he first came upon Walton Ford's work to illustrate some of the stories he published. He is now a New Yorker staff writer. He was also the founding editor of Granta and has written two books, Among the Thugs and Heat: An Amateur's Adventures as a Kitchen Slave, Line Cook, Pasta Maker, and Apprentice to a Dante-Quoting Butcher in Tuscany. He lives in New York City with his wife Jessica Green, and their two sons.