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.
By A. E. Goetting and Will Ransom.
FIG. 110.—A PHOTOGRAPHIC BOOKPLATE.
[LANDSCAPES AND GROUPS ON THE DINING-ROOM TABLE]
Did you ever try building landscapes on the dining-room table? If not, learn how easy it is and try it out some evening or rainy Sunday, when you don't feel like tramping across country with muddy roads and flat lightings.