We have all of us seen and many of us have made collections of those
attractive little bits of paper so frequently stuck on the front
cover of a book to designate its ownership. Invented almost
contemporaneously with the first printed books, they have been
designed and engraved by artists of the highest standing and used by
the world's greatest men and women. Who would not be proud to own a
book containing a bookplate made by Albrecht Durer or Paul Revere, or
one whose bookplate proved it had belonged to George Washington or
Theodore Roosevelt, irrespective of the great money value of such
items?
The bookplate is an intensely personal possession. The first were
heraldic, identifying the possessors by their coats of arms. Modern
bookplates usually reflect some personal taste of the owner, his
hobby, his house, his portrait, or the type of books he collects.
Nothing could be more fitting than one made from a photograph taken by
its possessor, and yet in the writer's collection of many thousand
bookplates covering several centuries and many countries, there are
less than a dozen photographic examples.
They are easily made. The most usual method is to choose a suitable
photograph, a view of the home or library interior, a loved landscape
or view, a symbolical figure with a book, a genre which may be a pun
on the owner's name, or a picture relating to his chief hobby, and
draw a more or less ornamental frame containing the words "Ex Libris"
or "His Book," together with the name, about it. There are other
wordings, but the above are the commonest. The whole is then
photographed down to the proper size, usually three or four inches
high, and prints made either by photography or from a halftone block.
The nude female figure is a frequent motive in bookplates, whether
photographic, or etched or engraved. The example we show is the work
of two artists, one of whom made the photograph while the other
designed the framework.
[Illustration: By A. E. Goetting and Will Ransom. FIG. 110.--A
PHOTOGRAPHIC BOOKPLATE.]