A. W. Elson & Co.

A.W. Elson & Company, Boston (American Printers & Publishers, c. 1894-1925) was a well known printing and publishing house back in the late 19th Century through the early part of the early 1900's. The company was owned by Alfred W. Elson (American, c1860-) and was based at 146 Oliver Street, Boston (Belmont, MA) and most of their images were historical scenes, portraits and reproductions of artwork. The company made photogravure plates and were plate printers. They also produced large carbon photographic prints, etchings, engravings and even interestingly enough copper-plate paintings (a veritable original painted upon the etched copper-plate, with brush and palette of color, after the manner of an artist painting in oil-colors, and is at one printing, transferred to the sheet). The Company printed for home decoration, museums, schools and colleges, libraries and other types of civic buildings etc, and they prided themselves on having high-quality fadeless and permanent prints known as the "Elson Prints". As a side note: Sometimes people accidentally misread the publishers copyright that is printed on certain prints or mats as; "A Welson & Company" or "A Welson Company" or "A Welson & Co." as the company often times printed the letters in their name close together which often makes it tough to distinguish the name correctly.

(Written by Mark Strong of Meibohm Fine Arts, Inc., East Aurora, NY, meibohmfinearts.com)