2-755-749 - The Print Collector/Heritage Images

German Renaissance typographic ornaments, (1898). 'Fig 1: Title-frame (1519) probably by Hieronymus Hopfer. Fig 2: Initial by A. Dürer. Fig 3: Frieze (1539) by A. Aldengrever [Heinrich Aldegrever?]. Fig 4: Initial from a dance-of-death alphabet by Hans Holbein. Fig 5: Marginal decoration from the prayer-book of the Emperor Charles V by A. Dürer. Fig 6: Frieze (1528) by H. S. Beham. Fig 7: Initial (1518) by an unknown master. Fig 8: Initial by Paul Frank. Fig 9: Initial by Jost Aman [Jost Amman?]. Fig 10: Initial (1527-1532) from Hans Holbein's children's alphabet. Fig 11: Initial by an unknown master. Fig 12: Frieze by J. Binck. Fig 13: Initial by P. Frank...The custom of decorating printings with artistic initials, marginal borders etc. is nearly as old as typography itself. In the beginning, Gothic forms, of course, were still prevailing; but the transition from the 15th to the 16th century marked a new era for this branch of art. Of marked and decisive importance was particularly the activity of the greatest German artists of that period, viz of Holbein, Dürer and others; they were continually creating new ornamental alphabets...'. Plate 75 from "The Historic Styles of Ornament" translated from the German of H. Dolmetsch. [B.T. Batford, London, 1898]