Bookplates

OF course some people have exaggerated the importance of bookplates, and on the other hand some have affected to ignore them. Now the simple fact is that bookplates belong to books, and anything that has to do with books will assuredly charm cultivated minds until time shall be no more. If this essential point were oftener remembered, the exaggerations of both sides would be avoided.

In Germany, a country where bookplates very early found a home, the word bibliothekzeichen, or library label, is used. Germans also use the name ex libris, and in France the Latin expression ex libris is the only term in use. Naturally the owner’s name in the genitive case is always understood. In France manuscript inscriptions of ownership are very fittingly included as ex libris.

It is too late to change now; but, at all events, whether included or not under any special word, manuscript inscriptions in books by their owners will always be a very interesting study.

What, as explained above, are in France included under ex libris, were known long before the days of printing, as personal inscriptions with or without the delineation of armorial bearings are often to be found forming part of the text of books in manuscript. In fact the various relationships of wealthy patron, learned scribe, and skilled illuminator, gave much scope for these.

To come to what may be said to be known everywhere as ex libris, is to treat of those wonderful days when the earliest printed books were still a novelty. Directly several people or institutions each had copies of a certain printed book, each copy being a duplicate of the other, a wish arose to distinguish ownership.

Before treating further of bookplates, it will be well to clearly point out the different kinds of blocks or plates. The woodcut block, known in some manner to the Chinese 400 years before, was first cut in Europe early in the fifteenth century. The St. Christopher engraved in Germany in 1423, is probably the earliest. The piece of wood to be engraved was cut longwise with the grain, as a plank is cut to-day. A thin piece of some soft wood, such as pear, apple, or lime, was chosen, the design drawn upon it, and then with a knife the engraver cut away to a certain depth everything except the drawn design.

In modern times—about 1785—a revolution took place in wood engraving, when Bewick began to engrave on a piece of wood cut endwise, and with a graver instead of a knife. Bewick chose some very hard wood, usually box. This manner has been continued to this day; and sometimes to distinguish the old art from the new, as the one is so different from the other, the former is called a woodcut and the latter wood-engraving.

Next as to etchings. To produce an etching a copper plate is covered with wax, then with an etching-needle the design is drawn through the wax to the copper. Acid is then applied, which, of course, only eats out the copper where the design has been etched.

Now as to copper-plate line engravings. The engraver first traces on the plate the outline of his design, and then with the triangular-pointed graver he furrows out the lines, inclining his graver deeper or shallower according as he wishes to produce varying effects. Copper-plate engraving has been practised ever since early in the fifteenth century. About 1820 engraving on steel came into vogue. More impressions can be taken from a steel than from a copper plate; but steel is more difficult to engrave upon. By a new process, however, a copper plate can now be strengthened with a steel film.

Mezzotint engraving is an art by itself, and of great interest to English readers, because of the many charming mezzotint engravings after England’s great portrait-painter, Sir Joshua Reynolds; and also by reason of Prince Rupert, the brave cavalier’s, close connection with the art. He has often been said to have invented mezzotint; but the first credit for this is now given to another gallant soldier, Ludwig von Siegen, who engraved a plate in 1642, and kept his discovery a profound secret until, in 1654, he found himself in Brussels with Prince Rupert. The two kindred spirits meeting, the secret was soon unfolded. Rupert became as eager in another field as if he were leading a cavalry charge, and in four years’ time appeared his splendid mezzotint engraving, The Executioner of John the Baptist. As the object of this book is not to give a serious treatise on elaborate methods of engraving, it will best express mezzotint to state that it is in general terms produced by the opposite process from a line engraving, A very smooth copper-plate surface is, as it were, engraved all over. Then the design is wrought on this by a scraping process.

A kind of stipple or dotted engraving was known early in the sixteenth century; but what is really famous as stipple and dotted engraving, only came into vogue in the eighteenth century. The copper plate was first covered with wax, and a dotted outline of the subject pricked through the wax with an etching-needle. Then the shadows were filled in, and finally acid used, as with an etching, Francesco Bartolozzi’s is probably the name best known in this connection, though in masterly ability, William Ryland, who was hanged for forgery, far surpassed him.