The home library . Fi&. 22. name is there, and so are his arms, but so airy and grace-ful is the touch of the artist that even the heraldic designloses its stiffness and heaviness. The sketch made by Gayarni for the Goncourt broth- 112 THE HOME LIBRARY. ers, Edmond and Jules, who were inseparable, living to-gether, eating together, working together, writing togeth-er, shows how completely the French have cast off anytrace of the heraldic origin of the book-plate. There isa French locution, ^^Les deux doigts de la main—^^thetwo fingers on the hand—implying close and fraternalunion ; and it is t
The home library . Fi&. 22. name is there, and so are his arms, but so airy and grace-ful is the touch of the artist that even the heraldic designloses its stiffness and heaviness. The sketch made by Gayarni for the Goncourt broth- 112 THE HOME LIBRARY. ers, Edmond and Jules, who were inseparable, living to-gether, eating together, working together, writing togeth-er, shows how completely the French have cast off anytrace of the heraldic origin of the book-plate. There isa French locution, ^^Les deux doigts de la main—^^thetwo fingers on the hand—implying close and fraternalunion ; and it is this which Gavarni sets before us in his. Fia. 23. clever sketch (Fig. 23). Still more striking and uncon-ventional is the book-plate of Victor Hugo, designed byM. Aglalis Bouvenne (Fig. 24). It represents the towerof Notre Dame de Paris, marked with four gigantic let-ters, H V G 0, and illumined by a brilliant flash of light-ning on which we can read the legend ^^Ex-Libris, VictorHugo. Quite as peculiar, although less characteristic, is ON THE LENDING AND MARKING OF BOOKS. 113 MANET the etching of M. Bracquemonds, which serves as thebook-plate of M. Edouard Manet, the impressionist paint-er. It is an outline bust of rising from a pedestal, re-lieved by a few ferns (Fig. 25).There are not many Ameri-can book-plates, although thetaste for them is growing rapid-ly. They will increase in num-ber as the number of book-loversincreases. The only Americanbook-plate which we are at lib-
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Keywords: ., bookcentury1800, bookd, booksubjectprivatelibraries, bookyear1883
