Studio: international art (7.1896)

Some Recent Book-Plates

BOOK-PLATE BY G. R. QUESTED

BOOK-PLATE BY CEL1A LEVETUS

94

trated in our pages are one or two intended for
ladies' use; but we can hardly discover therefrom
the dominant idea for an ex-libris intended to be
used by a sex not supposed to be peculiarly in-
terested in those trifles which the bibliophile
affects to prize so highly.

The growing education of the democracy, or
the feeling that heraldic book-plates should be used
only by those in the direct line of succession, or
even a mere passing caprice of fashion, may dictate
the preference for pictorial plates to-day. For it
is certain that among some hundreds of modern
designs scarce a dozen of those belonging to
commoners show any trace of heraldry. There-
fore, having no examples of " armorials " for ladies
in the present group we may dismiss their peculiar
interest in the matter and refrain from dis-

BOOK-'PLATE BY H. NELSON

cussing " widow's cords," the proper impalement
of the arms of married women, and the various
precedents which need some study if a designer
wishes to escape exposing his ignorance. But the
two designs for mere males by Harold Nelson are