American Book-Plates: A Guide to Their Study with ExamplesAllen, Charles Dexter
History
American Book-Plates: A Guide to Their Study with Examples
Allen, Charles Dexter
Bookplates -- Bibliography; Bookplates, American
Later developments of this style are seen in the plates of _Henry
Marchant_, _Danforth_, _Nathaniel Tracy_, and _John Marston_; in these
some of the features of the former are wanting, but they are evidently a
legitimate progeny in the matter of style.
[Illustration: John Chandler Jun^{r}. Esq^{r}.]
Another, and without doubt the highest type of the Chippendale plate
which Hurd made, is seen in the _John Chandler, Jr._, the _Dana_, the
_Philip Dumeresque_, the _Vassall_, and the _Wilson_ plates. In these
the shield becomes larger, the whole scheme of decoration shows more
fine detail work, and the effect is lighter, more graceful, and seems at
once the work of a master. The names are engraved in large bold type,
with a characteristic dash after the last period.
[Illustration: Lew.^{s.} De Blois]
In the Jacobean style, the earliest of Hurd’s work is undoubtedly the
_Lewis De Blois_. This is crude in workmanship, not very good in
drawing, but excellent in design, and faithful to the characteristics
of the style; the shield is placed against a frame which is lined with
the regulation fish-scale pattern; the sides are richly foliated, the
mantling is profuse and very well drawn, and the name is placed upon a
fringed curtain which is tied up at the ends with ribbon.
[Illustration: Joshua Spooner.]
The handsomest Jacobean plates by Hurd are the _Robert Jenkins_, the
_Spooner_, and the _Andrew_ Tyler. In the former the lining is
diapered, the scroll work at the side of the arms is very fine, and at
the bottom, under the shield, a small vignette of a ship under full sail
is very pretty. At the top of the scrolls on either side two turbanded
female heads peer at each other across the crest.
In the _Tyler_ plate the frame is very similar to the Jenkins, the
lining is diapered, and the scroll at the side are the same. The little
vignette at the bottom, however, is displaced by a sour face with gray
hair. The two faces are replaced by urns filled with flowers, and the
old cloth festoon is draped below the whole design. The _Spooner_ plate
bears no resemblance to the others, and is a more graceful design. The
lining is latticed, the Sphinx head under the shield is enclosed within
a frame of its own, and at either side are term figures from whose hands
depend bouquets of flowers; the crest is overarched with a bit of the
old scallop shell, and the motto is on a ribbon, which, wholly
unsupported, maintains a curved position under the frame.
The Jacobean plates of _Benjamin Greene_ and _Peter R. Livingston_ are
almost identical in design; the small frame which encloses the shield is
lined with the fish-scale pattern, the mantling is handsome and profuse,
and the motto ribbon is stretched in rather stiff manner below the
frame.
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