Wild Muse Notes

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Entries Tagged as 'Inspirations'

Embroidered Book Covers

February 17th, 2010 · 3 Comments

17th century embroidered satin book with floral motif.

While researching book bindings for a project, I’ve been coming across these gorgeous embroidered book covers and bindings from the 16th and 17th century. Thought I’d make a blog post out of these exquisite works of art.. The original scans for the books are scattered throughout The British Library Database of Bookbindings. I’ve just selected, [...]

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Rapacious Birds and Crustaceous Fishes

January 23rd, 2010 · 2 Comments

Plate XL

“We now come to a beautiful and loquacious race of animals, that embellish our forests, amuse our walks, and exclude solitude from our most shady retirements. From there man has nothing to fear, their pleasures, their desires, and even their animosities, only serve to enliven the general picture of Nature, and give harmony to meditation.”

Yet [...]

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Undine

January 21st, 2010 · 4 Comments

Undine (frontispiece) 1897

I found this Victorian Era copy of Undine by Friedrich de La Motte Fouque in the toss away bin on one of my recent book hunts. This copy, published in 1897, is illustrated by Rosie M. M. Pitman. The cover and binding are water damaged but the pages and pictures are in pretty good shape. [...]

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Little Dutch Boy

January 17th, 2010 · 6 Comments

Little Dutch Boy

I first ran into this weird little doll about four years ago, close to when we moved here from Boston. He lived in a glass case in one of the local antique markets. I’m not really a doll person per se. I don’t collect them and I didn’t often play with them when I was [...]

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For Meate or Medicine

January 2nd, 2010 · 4 Comments

The Fourth Book of Distillations containing many singular and secret recipes.

While sorting through the old books at the Horticultural Center, I picked up a musty old tome which I thought was a history of gardening. It turned out to be a book about alchemy and the construction of various types of stills. Most chapters focus on use of plants by the Puritans of New England [...]

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