Decorative border

Thomas Robert Macquoid

Wood-engraving in colour by Edmund Evans

5½ x 4¾ inches

M. Betham Edwards,Little Bird Red and Little Bird Blue, 13

Another naturalistic border, this time representing brambles and other wild flowers. The rhythm of the arabesques underscore’s the text’s emphasis on the vitality of nature, and the border as a whole animates the page with movement and interest; one can imagine how a parent, struggling to engage a child with the text, might have asked the juvenile reader if he or she could identify the flowers and what they tell us about God’s creation? The book was published, with a number of variations, by James G. Gregory, New York [circa 1862].

Click on image to enlarge it.