Holland comes next with the plate of a certain Anna van der Aa, in 1597; then Italy with one attributed to the year 1622. The earliest known American example is the plain printed label of one John Williams, 1679.
A sketch of the history of the book-plate, either as a minor work of symbolical and decorative art, or as an accessory to the binding of books, must obviously begin in Germany, not only because the earliest examples known are German, but also because they are found in great numbers long before the fashion spread to other countries, and are often of the highest artistic interest. Albrecht Dürer is known to have actually engraved at least six plates (some of very important size) between 1503 and 1516 (fig. 3), and to have supplied designs for many others. Several notable plates are ascribed to Lucas Cranach and to Hans Holbein, and to that bevy of so-called Little Masters, the Behams, Virgil Solis, Matthias Zundt, Jost Amman, Saldörfer, Georg Hüpschmann and others. The influence of these draughtsmen over the decorative styles of Germany has been felt through subsequent centuries down to the present day, notwithstanding the invasion of successive Italian and French fashions during the 17th and 18th centuries, and the marked effort at originality of composition observable among modern designers. The heavy, over-elaborated German style never seems to have affected neighbouring countries; but since it was undoubtedly from Germany that was spread the fashion of ornamental book-plates as marks of possession, the history of German ex-libris remains on that account one of high interest to all those who are curious in the matter.
Fig. 3.—Book-plate of Lazarus Spengler, by Albrecht Dürer,
1515 (reduced).
It was not before the 17th century that the movable ex-libris became tolerably common in France. Up to that time the more luxurious habit of stamping the cover with a personal device had been in such general favour with book-owners as to render the use of labels superfluous. From the middle of the century, however, the ex-libris proper became quite naturalized; examples of that period are very numerous, and, as a rule, are very handsome. It may be here pointed out that the expression ex-libris, used as a substantive, which is now the recognized term for book-plate everywhere on the continent, found its origin in France. The words only occur in the personal tokens of other nationalities long after they had become a recognized inscription on French labels.
In many ways the consideration of the English book-plate, in its numerous styles, from the late Elizabethan to the late Victorian period, is peculiarly interesting. In all its varieties it reflects with great fidelity the prevailing taste in decorative art at different epochs. Of English examples, none thus far seems to have been discovered of older date than the gift-plate of Sir Nicholas Bacon; for the celebrated, gorgeous, hand-painted armorial device attached to a folio that once belonged to Henry VIII., and now reposes in the King’s library, British Museum, does not come under the head of book-plate in its modern sense. The next is that of Sir Thomas Tresham, dated 1585. Until the last quarter of the 17th century the number of authentic English plates is very limited. Their composition is always remarkably simple, and displays nothing of the German elaborateness. They are as a rule very plainly armorial, and the decoration is usually limited to a symmetrical arrangement of mantling, with an occasional display of palms or wreaths. Soon after the Restoration, however, a book-plate seems to have suddenly become an established accessory to most well-ordered libraries. Book-plates of that period offer very distinctive characteristics. In the simplicity of their heraldic arrangements they recall those of the previous age; but their physiognomy is totally different. In the first place, they invariably display the tincture lines and dots, after the method originally devised in the middle of the century by Petra Sancta, the author of Tesserae Gentilitiae, which by this time had become adopted throughout Europe. In the second, the mantling assumes a much more elaborate appearance—one that irresistibly recalls that of the periwig of the period—surrounding the face of the shield. This style was undoubtedly imported from France, but it assumed a character of its own in England. As a matter of fact, thenceforth until the dawn of the French Revolution, English modes of decoration in book-plates, as in most other chattels, follow at some years’ distance the ruling French taste. The main characteristics of the style which prevailed during the Queen Anne and early Georgian periods are:—ornamental frames suggestive of carved oak, a frequent use of fish-scales, trellis or diapered patterns, for the decoration of plain surfaces; and, in the armorial display, a marked reduction in the importance of the mantling. The introduction of the scallop-shell as an almost constant element of ornamentation gives already a foretaste of the Rocaille-Coquille, the so-called Chippendale fashions of the next reign. As a matter of fact, during the middle third of the century this rococo style (of which the Convers plate [fig. 4] gives a tolerably typical sample) affects the book-plate as universally as all other decorative objects. Its chief element is a fanciful arrangement of scroll and shell work with curveting acanthus-like sprays—an arrangement which in the examples of the best period is generally made asymmetrical in order to give freer scope for a variety of countercurves. Straight or concentric lines and all appearances of flat surface are studiously avoided; the helmet and its symmetrical mantling tends to disappear, and is replaced by the plain crest on a fillet. The earlier examples of this manner are tolerably ponderous and simple. Later, however, the composition becomes exceedingly light and complicated; every conceivable and often incongruous element of decoration is introduced, from cupids to dragons, from flowerets to Chinese pagodas. During the early part of George III.’s reign there is a return to greater sobriety of ornamentation, and a style more truly national, which may be called the urn style, makes its appearance. Book-plates of this period have invariably a physiognomy which at once recalls the decorative manner made popular by architects and designers such as Chambers, the Adams, Josiah Wedgwood, Hepplewhite and Sheraton. The shield shows a plain spade-like outline, manifestly based upon that of the pseudo-classic urn then so much to the fore. The
