One of the very first musings that I did was on bookplates. Dear to my heart as a lover of art and illustrations. This musing will present the title pages of a number of books on bookplates that can be found in our personal library. Follow-up musing will have photos of bookplates that live in our library.
I will start by presenting some of the narrative from the earlier musing on bookplates and their role and importance with regards to provenance.
Bookplates are often, if not mostly, wonderful works of art that add interest, and sometimes value, to its host. Many collect bookplates ensconced in its custom place inside the front cover of a book although some also collect unused bookplates. There are bookplate collecting groups such as The Bookplate Society, London. There are as many collecting segments for bookplates as there are for books.
Until the end of the nineteenth century, only the landed gentry, royalty, the church, the affluent could afford to amass private libraries and almost without exception all had their own individual, engraved bookplates, that would be pasted inside every volume. Costly and beautiful. Many
bookplates carried an inventory number. Bookplates help create the provenance for a book.
Late in the nineteenth century and well into the twentieth century more and more people collected books and bookplates became more fanciful and many were designed by well known artists. In fact, many specialized in this profitable field of business looking after their well healed customers.
Now for the other side of the coin which is a phenomenon of the recent several decades. Those generic bookplates that can be bought in any bookstore in small packages. Each bookplate has a place for the owner to write their name. The presence of one of these in a book is an unfortunate occurrence as an otherwise desirable book becomes much less so. They have negative value.
And in the world of modern first editions there is no acceptance of bookplates, period.
Not to end on a down note, I love bookplates and collect those from illustrators I am interested in. But they belong from the periods noted above. There will be more on this topic down the road.
Books on Bookplates
My muse, Sabrina
I walked past Sabrina almost every day for the past twenty some years, first with Gryphon and then with Freyja, our wonderful Belgian Shepherds. Now, I walk by Sabrina by myself.
She started to reach out to me just over the past couple of years. I started to stop and look at her beautiful hair and she started to respond to my attention by planting thoughts in my head.
Good thoughts, encouraging thoughts, stimulating thoughts, influential thoughts. She has become my muse. Although, I must confess some days she is stone-faced and refuses to talk to me. Thankfully, not often.