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Archival & Collage

Pictures from old printed books, and printers’ ornaments from 19th-century type books.

11 collections, most designs first

Illustrations

Pictures from illustrated books, 1565 to 1888.

Moffett’s Theater of Insects

Moths, beetles, spiders and scorpions from Moffett’s Theater of Insects, small woodcuts in a hard black line.

458 designs

Bewick’s Water Birds

Herons, grebes, gulls and the small country scenes between them, engraved on wood by Thomas Bewick.

306 designs

Gerard’s Herball

Irises, daffodils, grasses and grain from Gerard’s Herball of 1636, each shown whole, flower to root.

269 designs

The Drolatic Dreams

Strange, comic figures from Les Songes drolatiques de Pantagruel, a Paris picture book of 1565.

125 designs

Lear’s Book of Nonsense

Edward Lear’s drawings for his own limericks, from Frederick Warne’s edition with all the original pictures and verses.

101 designs

Tenniel’s Wonderland

John Tenniel’s Alice, from the White Rabbit to the pack of cards, in fine wood-engraved line.

42 designs

Publisher’s ornaments & cuts

Stock pictures, printer’s flowers, signs and display letters from American type-specimen books of the 1820s to 1880s. Foundries sold them to set beside ordinary type, so a printer could drop a ship, a border or a fancy capital into a handbill. Each is now a tile design, in the colours and size you choose.

Printer’s Cuts

Stock pictures for notices and handbills: ships, eagles, trades, beasts, pointing hands and almanac scenes.

1,051 designs

Printer’s Flowers

Cast type ornaments for borders and frames: rosettes, acanthus, palmettes, Greek key and fine flourishes.

410 designs

Decorated Initials

Capitals for an initial or a monogram: flower-inlaid, oak-leaf, fluted, blackletter, spiral and tiled.

252 designs

Signs & Symbols

Zodiac, planet, apothecary and mathematical signs from the typecase, plus crochet charts and globe diagrams.

70 designs