BUT FOUR HUNDRED AND SEVENTY-FIVE COPIES OF THIS BOOK
ARE PRINTED; OF WHICH FOUR HUNDRED AND TWENTY-FIVE
ARE ON ITALIAN HAND-MADE PAPER AND FIFTY ON IMPERIAL
JAPANESE VELLUM. OF THE ITALIAN PAPER EDITION THIS IS
No.
3^6
EDWIN DAVIS FRENCH
A MEMORIAL
t^-
EDWIN DAVIS FRENCH
A MEMORIAL
HIS LIFE . . HIS ART
a-
f^
NEW YORK
PRIVATELY PRINTED
1908
Copyright, 1908, by
Mary Brainerd French
PREFACE
THIS volume is the response to the generally expressed
desire of Mr. French's intimates and acquaintances
for a memorial record of him and of his work.
Unforeseen details have enlarged the book beyond its
original outline. These are chiefly shown in the inclusion
of some hundreds of states of the copper engravings, num-
bering nearly four hundred, by which he is known.
The biographical sketch of Mr. French is restricted to a
simple narrative of the chief events of his life, and sugges-
tions of the influences that governed it; a brief showing of
what it was.
In gathering and verifying many facts I have had the
use, very kindly granted by Mr. John P. Woodbury and
Mr. W. E. BailHe, of the long series of letters from Mr.
French to them. More than this, for from these letters I
have added much to my impressions of his personality
gained in twenty years of friendship with him, and I have
hoped more than anything else to convey his personality to
PREFACE
the reader. If I shall have done this I shall in some measure
have justified the confidence that Mrs. French has placed
in me.
It has been found imperative to divide Mr. French's en-
gravings into two classes: First, his book-plates, the Hst of
which follows his notation with the little continuation
needed to carry it to completion. Second, his miscellaneous
engravings and designs, including practically everything
save book-plates that is surely known to have come from
his hand. Occasionally he did some bit of engraving or
sketched a design that seemed to him too slight to attach
his name to or even to keep note of. Some engravings and
designs may, therefore, have escaped notice in the compila-
tion of the latter list. It may be stated, too, that there are
designs and engravings mistakenly attributed to him and
such have been omitted.
The compilation of the two lists has been somewhat diffi-
cult; absolute completeness is not claimed, for that is im-
possible, and unrecorded states of some coppers may appear
in time. Care has been taken to accurately record the
various plates and their various states that the lists miay be
a sure guide to the collector. A minute examination has
been made of the proofs and prints of the various plates
and a considerable correspondence has been had with their
holders. As a rule some distinguishing feature only has
been cited to mark a state, although the state indicated may,
and usually does, differ materially in other respects from
other states of the same plate. The lists make no distinc-
tion between working proofs and impressions from different
states of the plates. Strictly speaking, a working or trial
proof is one taken, while the plate is in a progressive state,
to aid the engraver in its completion; whereas an engrav-
ing appears in different states only when there has been a
PREFACE
change in the engraving of some detail of the completed
plate or an addition to it. In some instances Mr. French was
at liberty to strike off several copies of a working proof
and he thought them of sufficient interest to hand them to
friends who followed his work. These, therefore, are to
greater or less extent within the reach of the public. In
several clubs and libraries the successive states of the club
or library book-plate are preserved and are, therefore, rea-
sonably accessible, and a complete series of them is of the
greatest value to the student.
Only in very few, exceptional, instances have colors used
in printing been noted, as, of course, the holder of a plate
may at any time print his plate in any color he may choose.
Mrs. French feels that note has been made of everything
that Mr. French himself would have recorded, and she
wishes to express here her obligation to Mr. French's
friends who have walHngly and cordially cooperated in the
two lists. That of the book-plates would hardly have been
what it is without the industry and aid of Mr. Paul Lemp-
erly, who published a list of Mr. French's book-plates in
1899; Mr. Charles Dexter Allen, Mr. John P. Woodbury,
Mr. Arnold Wood, Miss Messenger, Rev. William A.
Brewer, Miss Emma Toedteberg have given valuable sug-
gestions and information ; and finally, Mr. W. E. Baillie's
long friendship and correspondence with Mr. French and
his very accurate and thorough knowledge of book-plates
made his aid invaluable.
In regard to the miscellaneous engravings Mrs. French
feels particularly indebted to Mr. Frank Weitenkampf,
curator of the Print Department of the New York Public
Library, who gave his experience and judgment in outlin-
ing this record of his friend's work, and who contributed
largely to it. And in her behalf I also thank Mr. William
be
PREFACE
Loring Andrews and Mr. Richard Hoe Lawrence for use-
ful suggestions and courtesies.
The examples of Mr, French's art here given are printed
from the original coppers by the kind permission of the
owners. Grateful acknowledgment of this courtesy is made
to The Bibliophile Society, Mrs. Holden, and Mr. Andrews,
and to the owners of the book-plates included.
In the list of book-plates the names are given exactly as
they are on the plates, and, with a few obvious exceptions,
this rule is followed in the list of miscellaneous designs and
engravings.
Italicized words and dates are also as engraved, excepting
in the use of the word Cypher with the later signatures. The
marginal date shows the year of completion of a plate.
When the plate is dated, the date is associated with its
name or signature.
I. H. B.
CONTENTS
PAGB
PREFACE vii
EDWIN DAVIS FRENCH 3
BOOK-PLATES 33
MISCELLANEOUS DESIGNS AND ENGRAVINGS . 77
INDEX OF BOOK-PLATES 91
LIST OF PLATES
EDWIN DAVIS FRENCH, PORTRAIT, 1894 . . . Frontispiece
THE SOWER Vignette on Title-page
FACING PAGE
EDWIN DAVIS FRENCH, PORTRAIT, 1906 12
HARVARD QUADRANGLE 30
EDWIN DAVIS FRENCH 33
ARTHUR WEST LITTLE 44
CANDIDATI 46
PRINCETON UNIVERSITY 49
MARY BARBER ROBINSON 50
SARAH ELIZABETH WHITIN 58
EDWARD DEAN ADAMS 60
VERY REV. EUGENE AUGUSTUS HOFFMAN 64
MABEL SLADE 68
IRA HUTCHINSON BRAINERD 76
EDWIN DAVIS FRENCH
EDWIN DAVIS FRENCH
THE old village of North Attleboro, Massachusetts,
threaded on the post-road by which the colonists
frequently passed between Providence and Boston,
has been for many years a home of the jewelry industry.
For many years the town has been peopled with designers
and engravers, with goldsmiths and silversmiths, whose art
and influence have permeated the place, afifecting even those
not at all concerned with their work.
Here John French settled from England in the latter part
of the seventeenth century, founding one of several Ameri-
can branches of the French family. His descendants in
direct line have ever since been associated with the town and
its affairs, and in the third generation they were represented
by Ezra French in the patriot army of the Revolution.
Ezra French's grandson, Deacon Ebenezer French, was a
man of more peaceful life, a carpenter and builder by trade;
a man of responsibility, highly esteemed as a citizen and as
EDWIN DAVIS FRENCH
a workman. He married Maria Norton of Attleboro who
also was of early New England parentage, and they lived
simply as their ancestors had lived, contributing their part
in town and church and social activities.
Edwin Davis French, their only child, was born in North
Attleboro on the nineteenth day of January, 1851. The
town still had something of the New England village
character, and he lived a country boy's life until, after a year
in preparatory school at Suffield, Connecticut, he entered
the class of 1870 of Brown University.
Mr. French was, from his boyhood, strongly influenced
by his mother. She was a woman of native refinement and
gentleness, and he resembled her both in character and in
features. He never swerved from the principles of life and
conduct that he learned from her, and though a wider ac-
quaintance and cosmopolitan studies modified its expression,
her faith was his through life.
While the boy Edwin played a boy's part in these early
years and enjoyed the games of the time as did other boys
of his age, yet perhaps he accepted that unaccountable
nuisance of boys' life, school, with greater grace than is
usual. In his amusements he went a little aside from the
ordinary, and exercised a natural tendency to art that was
no doubt stimulated by the atmosphere of the town itself.
In the back yard of his home stood a little abandoned
workshop which his father cleared and altered for him and
let him furnish to his own fancy. When he was eight or
ten years old he held art exhibitions in the little shop that
were the delight and wonder of his fortunate playmates who
enjoyed them at the extravagant rate of two pins admission.
Two small panoramas, done off in water-colors and pencil,
survive. The smaller of them, measuring about eight feet
long by four inches wide, contains seventeen views ; the sec-
4
HIS LIFE
ond, somewhat more pretentious, is about eight inches wide
by perhaps fourteen feet in length. He was, however, not
satisfied with undertakings of this size and passed on to
larger panoramas made on the reverse side of wall-paper.
Among these panoramic pictures is a representation of what
was at that time a sensation in the town, and probably was
regarded by the children as a supreme effort in architecture,
Barden's store. The three great arches of its front no doubt
appeared as wonderful to them as the three arches of Peter-
borough do to the traveler of to-day. Record steamships,
State capitals, and lighthouses are here, together with trees
and flowers drawn and colored for reality, although in a
green rose his imagination anticipates Burbank. The views
of Sunnyside and Sleepy Hollow testify to a general interest
in the genial Irving too little familiar to-day. It is inter-
esting, too, to find on various of these panoramic pictures
the now more widely known signature of the artist, E. D.
French.
He was fond of books, and faithful to his studies, and
his school-days passed happily. Yet two years' close applica-
tion to his studies at Brown University seriously affected his
health; and although he still reserved a longing for a com-
plete college course and possibly a literary or professional
career, he yielded to the invitation of a friend, Mr. W. D.
Whiting, the founder of the firm that bears his name, to
become an engraver of silver. His special gifts in design
and in execution were soon recognized, and he became chief
of the engraving department. Except during the two years,
from 1881 to 1883, when he was designer for Mr. Frank M.
Whiting, he held that rank until he left the Whiting Com-
pany in 1894.
His nature almost demanded that he give his life to art,
and of all arts engraving was the most opportune. It in-
5
EDWIN DAVIS FRENCH
vited and environed him and so became the channel through
which his artist's temperament made itself most widely
known.
The arts of music and painting also attracted him, and
he practised them as an amateur. North Attleboro, with its
many artisans, after its days' work on brooches, watch-
chains, and silver, regaled itself in the evenings and on holi-
days with a brass band of fifteen pieces in which the town
took pride. The parts for trombone, French horn, cornet,
fife, and the like, were drawn off and distributed by the
quiet and reticent lad, Edwin French, who played the
trombone, and, further, composed the "Wamsutta Quick
March," and other pieces for the band. Later in life he
enjoyed the piano, which he played well, and he turned also
for recreation to the palette and brush, though with a self
depreciation that no praise or evidence seemed able to dis-
lodge, for in all his life he never regarded any of his color
sketches as of any worth. They seem rather to be a kind
of playing with colors and form, and were, as a rule, only
so far completed as a single afternoon might allow, and the
next holiday brought new tints and shadows and he turned
to those and a clean canvas.
No doubt each man has to a large extent his choice in
giving to the world, and as the world possesses work from
Mr. French's graver that would have given him distinction
at any point in the history of art, we will not regret that
its considerable volume, and the thought given to its detail
and to each plate's full effect robbed America of a land-
scape-painter of distinction.
Enfield, Connecticut, is a long way from North Attleboro,
Massachusetts, yet Mr. French always loved walking, and
to him the air was bracing and tinged with romance, for at
Enfield lived Mary Olivia Brainerd, daughter of Harvey P.
6
HIS LIFE
Brainerd. They were married in 1873. ^^ ^^^ ^ happy
union, characterized by that ready understanding and com-
panionship that bears all things, and Mr. French found in
his wife a source of cheer and encouragement which carried
him through many a dark season when his hold on life
seemed failing and the doctors were grave.
In 1876 Mr. French removed from North Attleboro to
New York, where, with an interval of two years in his old
home, following his mother's death in 1881, he lived until
the summer of 1897.
Once established in New York, Mr. French very readily
resumed his quiet, systematic life, plying between his home
and the Whiting Company, which were his only interests of
moment. He did not concern himself with the political
struggles of the times unless fundamental principles were at
stake, and he did not enter very actively in social life, or
interest himself with the topics of the day. The hurly-
burly of city life was hardly in accord with his feeling.
In school and college he had shown a fondness for lan-
guages; indeed, he was a natural linguist. A leaf from a
copy of Dante was often on his bench before him for refer-
ence from time to time in the intervals of his work, and he
read the "Divine Comedy" as he walked Broadway with
the jangle and commotion of the traffic about him. His
book-plate records his taste in the classics; Dante, Virgil,
and Lucretius, standing side by side with Emerson, whose
serenity he shared. Volapiik very naturally attracted him,
and for years he held an extensive correspondence in this
language, attending conventions, and contributing to jour-
nals devoted to it. His enthusiasm led him, in 1893, to loan
a group of Volapiik books to the Chicago Exposition. These
books, not more than twelve in number, contained a little
book-label which was printed to his notion from type. On
7
EDWIN DAVIS FRENCH
account of its personal interest this plate has been included
in the list of his book-plates.
As Volapiik subsided in interest and Esperanto replaced
it, Mr. French transferred his attention to the latter lan-
guage, and was proud of its progress. He found that al-
though he had read French with ease for many years and
had known Esperanto but a comparatively short time, yet
when at Montreal he could talk freely in the latter language
while he felt much less at home with the classic French
there spoken. Among his papers there are many jottings,
essays, and translations in Esperanto, among them transla-
tions from Stevenson, a rubricated translation of the Lord's
Prayer, and a carefully engrossed address of some twelve
thousand words on the necessity of a universal language.
It was a treat to discuss these new languages with Mr.
French, and he liked to prove their availability and smooth-
ness by reading them. A passage in Esperanto from "Ham-
let," read in his resonant, expressive voice was quite as
impressive to the foreign ear as though delivered in Italian
by Salvini. He would turn, however, from these to Dante,
who, after all, was his favorite and whom he rendered with
something akin to reverence. If asked for English verse
he would choose Rossetti's ballads, in which he turned most
readily to "Sister Helen," and the "Blessed Damozel," or,
possibly, he would read the simple verse of Longfellow and
that of Whittier, whose "At Last" he lingered over :
Be near me when all else is from me drifting;
Earth, sky, home's pictures, days of shade and shine.
In English fiction he was content to be a simple lover of
Scott and Dickens. He never outgrew them, and with them
he relished Victor Hugo and the recent French and Italian
novelists. He was acquainted with the history and literature
8
HIS LIFE
of art, especially of engraving and the subjects of ex-libris
and heraldry, which were associated with it in his own
engraving. The last book he read was Lippmann's "En-
graving and Etching."
During Mr. French's earlier years in New York, he
studied art at home, gathering and compiling many scrap-
books of designs and specimens of engraving; but in 1883
he availed himself of the opportunities offered by the Art
Students League, and there he for some years studied draw-
ing under George de Forest Brush and William Sartain.
The association with Mr. Sartain was peculiarly fortunate,
and the future designer and engraver on copper was an apt
pupil of the engraver whose father before him had earned
fame in the same field.
In 1886 Mr. French became a member of the League's
Board of Control; in 1887, its treasurer; in 1889-92, its
president for two terms. Painstaking, systematic, and al-
most eager for details, he was an effective factor in the great
advance made by the League during his official connection
with it.
In 1887 the League moved from Fourteenth Street to
ampler quarters in Twenty-third Street, and in 1889, with
the Society of American Artists and the Architectural
League of New York, it united in forming the American
Fine Arts Society, and the movement began which resulted
in the permanent home of the three organizations in Fifty-
seventh Street.
The president of a large and restlessly progressive society,
though loyally supported by vigorous and capable assist-
ants, as was Mr. French, has a multitude of questions to
consider and a mass of work to do, and although he had an
aversion to asserting his views, he gave time and thought
without grudge, and with some sacrifice, to these duties.
9
EDWIN DAVIS FRENCH
Publicity was particularly disagreeable to him, and he
felt keenly the ungracious attack made on Mr. Saint-
Gaudens for using a nude model in his mixed classes. The
deathless question of the nude in art rang through the press
and stormed about the League. Much wholesome editorial
comment and some woeful wit resulted, and perhaps the
public was educated, for, as an echo, some casts from the
antique in a western city were draped. But the unfortu-
nate thing was that the League lost the services of the first
and noblest sculptor of our generation.
Mr. French conceived his first duty to be to the League,
and he declined to hamper its action by voicing his views in
the press. The reporter of a minor journal resented this,
and said his paper must have a "story" — and sure enough,
Mr. French found in the next issue a clever concocted tale,
which he duly scrap-booked and marked "fake." His one
contribution to the public discussion was a brief note to the
leading journals stating that Mr. Saint-Gaudens had simply
continued the two-year-old practice of the League.
The receptions to Benjamin Constant and E. A. Abbey in
1889, the costume reception in 1891, and the other public
functions of the League were a pride to him. But his great-
est satisfactions were to see the classes grow, to see their
graduates take positions as artists and teachers of art, and
to have the opportunity to help and by his sympathy and
encouragement to win the affection and reliance of some
who were students as he had been a student.
When his official connection with the League began, its
records showed a membership of four hundred and twenty-
three students. It had a membership of more than twice
that number when, in 1891, he retired as president, and be-
came one of the trustees of the American Fine Arts Society.
For something more than two years after Mr. French
10
HIS LIFE
withdrew from the Whiting Company, he Hved in New
York and devoted his energies entirely to work on copper.
His attention had been called to book-plates by the collec-
tion that his sister-in-law, Miss Helen Elvira Brainerd, then
a librarian in Columbia College, was making.
Merely for the jest he engraved, somewhat coarsely, fol-
lowing old English models, what was to all appearance a
book-plate, now in its way famous. It was heraldic — shield,
crest, and motto : u sepe ars so ap, disposed on the ribbon
underneath. This he printed roughly on old paper and
slipped into the little collection, whose owner was for a time
mystified by it; and, somewhat as the ancient heralds on
the appearance of an unknown champion, amateurs of to-
day have since been puzzled by the novel blazonry, and by
the motto so apparently an uncouth mixture of Welsh and
Latin. This was in the autumn of 1893. The jest soon
became earnest, for Miss Brainerd was rightly entitled to
a book-plate in place of the sham, and Mr. French designed
and engraved his first serious copperplate.
Having decided to give his future to copper engraving,
and to make a specialty of ex-libris, he engraved an an-
nouncement of his intention which, in the beauty of its
setting, was an enticing specimen of his work. He took a
natural pride in the fact that he never had to distribute this
announcement, for after he had once started he never
needed to consider whence the next commission might come.
He always had two or three plates in progress, commissions
were waiting his hand, and there was correspondence that
looked yet farther into the future.
In the summer of 1897, he removed from New York to
Saranac Lake and established his home in the midst of the
rugged Adirondack scenery that gratified his love of nature.
He frequently traveled to the South in the winter to
11
EDWIN DAVIS FRENCH
escape the sharper cold, yet he held his Adirondack home
until the end. Many are the brief descriptions of nature in
his letters, showing his pleasure in the mountain prospects,
the sunsets, and the tinted skies.
Whenever he journeyed from home he carried with him
his sand cushion, lens, and graver, and where he stopped
he set up his bench, framed a screen, and continued his en-
graving. This had its difficulties, as he sets them forth in a
letter to Mr. Baillie :
"The light is not just right for engraving in my present
quarters : I doubt if I could get altogether used to it so as to
do my best work, or if it would not be an injury to my eyes
to try it. For drawing it is good enough; there you have
white paper and black ink, and the problem of lighting is
comparatively a simple one. But in engraving, the surface
of the copper is polished, and excessive or insufficient light
is more readily felt ; moreover, the surface and cuts are the
same color, and so the engraved lines are seen only by reflec-
tion until you rub foreign matter into them, which you can't
stop to do with every stroke; for this reason uneven light
or cross lights are very confusing to one's optic nerve."
In the October of 1905 he made his greatest journey into
the world, a trip to Europe that he had looked forward to
for many years, and wherever he went he found a welcome
with those to whom his name was already known. The
doctor he had occasion to consult in France was a book-
plate collector and a student of engraving; he pulled proofs
of Mr. Gould's and Mr. Simmons' plates at Stecchini's in
Rome ; he here and there met correspondents in Esperanto ;
the art galleries of England, France, and Italy attracted
him ; but, best of all, he visited in Nuremburg the old home
of the father of copper engraving, Albert Diirer, and in
England he at last met, face to face, his friend and cor-
12
HIS ART
respondent of years, the veteran master, Mr. C. W. Sher-
born.
His outing was over; June of 1906 found him again in
America, and as ever still at work. This last year of his
life showed that, while his health was far from secure, there
was no waning in his enthusiasm, or in the firmness of his
line, or in the fertility of his invention. The fourteen book-
plates of this year, the year of his great vacation, maintained
his prestige to the end.
At the end of October he left Saranac, intending to spend
the winter in New York, and he eagerly anticipated the
closer association with his old-time friends in the city where
he so long worked, and so many of whose historic old build-
ings and points of interest he had pictured with his graver.
But his hope could not be fulfilled, and on the eighth of De-
cember, in the Sherwood studio building where, years
before, as president of the Art Students League, he had
joined in the formation of the Fine Arts Society, his life
closed.
II
Mr. French's name in art will always be associated with
designing and engraving on copper, for although, as we
have seen, he was for some sixteen years a silver engraver
of unusual skill, his work in silver is unsigned.
Yet his debt to these years of silver engraving was a
large one. While in the Whiting Company he became a
master of the technique of the craft; when he turned to
copper engraving he was as though born with a burin in his
13
EDWIN DAVIS FRENCH
hand. While there he had eagerly absorbed suggestions
and had gathered flowers and vines, drawing first-hand
from nature in his study for designs and their rendering.
His matchless lettering and his monograms, firm and digni-
fied in character, he learned there ; there, too, he learned to
grave so gracefully the flowers and sprays that give charm
to many of his copperplates. Years afterward, in 1899,
when he was known through a hundred and fifty copper
engravings, he inscribed a book to Mr. Charles Osborn of
the Whiting Company: "To whose instruction, example,
and energy I am so largely indebted for what skill in
handicraft and taste in design I may possess." Thus the
period of silver engraving was a fortunate training for his
later work in copper, and his gift in designing rapidly
adapted itself to his later and freer medium. We find this
transition in his six earliest book-plates, and in some of the
later ones the monogram motive readily suggests silver en-
graving.
The difference between engraving on silver and on cop-
per is quite radical, however akin the two may be in some
respects. The silver engraver has in mind the direct result,
which he sees as his graver unfolds it; the engraver on
copper works for a reflected result — a print — the reverse
of the cutting on the metal; the depth of his cut, the text-
ure of his engraving, is still to be interpreted by the printer,
and he must keep this interpretation in view. He has the
advantage, however, of working always upon a level sur-
face, while coffers, vases, mirrors, or the endless variety of
trinkets and household silver, all in infinite shape and size,
pass under his brother's hand. Yet the two branches of en-
graving are so closely alike that many artists and workers
have pursued both simultaneoush'', and many, like Paul
Revere and Mr. French, have passed from silver to copper.
14
HIS ART
Mr. French's copper engraving is marked by a direct-
ness and confidence that grew to an instinct as he became
accustomed to his medium; it is characterized by what Mr.
Weitenkampf well styles a nobility of line, a line fearless,
certain, and always with a definite purpose toward which
he wrought with a firm hand and a sure eye. He knew the
value of the heavy line for strength and shading, and
passed easily from heavy to light for form and perspec-
tive, avoiding the suggestion of flatness that condemns
many engravers to but transient success. His finer shad-
ing is as etching in its effect, though in some plates, for
example, that of Mr. Godfrey, he mingled etching and en-
graving. At times he used the dry-point, as in the twelve
deHcate remarques that are associated with as many plates.
His engravings exhibit a remarkable technique governed by
a sincere and true artistic feeling. It lay in his power to
impart to them a glowing luster, a warmth as of burnished
metal that gives them a brilliance and life not often reached
in engraving, and that so notably enhances the beauty of his
landscapes and seems to increase the illusion of their per-
spective, whether in such exquisite little gems as are
shown in the book-plates of Miss Slade, Mr. Merriman,
and Mr. Woodbury, or in the larger engraving of the Har-
vard Quadrangle.
The strongest influences he had among engravers were,
as Mr. Woodbury truly writes, the early German masters,
Diirer, the Behams, and Aldegrever. They were his mod-
els. The achievement of Mr. Sherborn was an inspiration
and example to him, particularly in heraldry, where he
noted Mr. Sherborn's methods and recognized his author-
ity. One connoisseur, oddly, finds close resemblance to the
work of Vaughan at a time when Mr. French was not fa-
miUar with it, so easily do artists of similar gift, traveling
15
EDWIN DAVIS FRENCH
on similar lines reach similar results. There seems to be
something honest and lasting in the work of these German
and English masters that he reached by sympathy. The
French engravers, lighter, graceful, but having as a rule
less strength, he studied, though he seldom chose their
style of decoration.
In talking of him at different times with two engravers,
one skilled in heraldic work, and the other notable in land-
scape engraving I was struck by the enthusiasm with which
each spoke of Mr. French's supremacy in his own field.
Beyond this mastery of the burin that distinguishes his
plates and wins the admiration of true critics and of en-
gravers, lay a striking gift for designing, and a controlled
imagination. He loved beauty and he loved sincerity, and
these form the basis of his original work. He found the
lotus and acanthus, the laurel, chrysanthemum, and pine in
nature or in the works of many artists, and he utilized
them, literally or conventionally, with almost unerring
taste; the graces of his ornament and foliation furnishing
a welcome to their wealth.
With those details and accessories of a design that give
personality to the plate, Mr. French was most careful— an
instrument or book or scene in one of his plates is usually
definite of its sort, and in its rendering he was delighted to
bring reality and art together. He searched high and low
for a pine-cone that would accord in its setting and be
found in nature; an old plate misled him in engraving a
tarpon, and he hunted for an authoritative representation
to guide him; a photo-reproduction of the Jost Amman
prints in the Grolier plate was not enough, he borrowed an
original. Often his clients aided him to this exactness, oft-
times he traced to it himself.
The most fortunate of his clients were those who placed
16
HIS ART
the least restriction on his freedom in composition and dec-
oration, once they had indicated the desired features. Def-
erential as he was, for he felt it was another's and not his
book-plate that he mig^ht have in hand, yet he had the ar-
tist's feeling very strongly, and in one instance this was
crossed by a client's wish for an alteration — the change was
made, and he took his name from the plate.
He was not one ever to take a commission in a perfunc-
tory spirit ; even in so many plates having the same general
purpose, he searched out the distinctive qualities of each.
To the lover of the sea each day that shines upon it has its
own peculiar quality in tint of sky or water, in wave or
cloud, that attracts attention and gives enjoyment; and to
Mr. French each copper had its own fascination as into it
was cut the new design with its new possibilities. He stud-
ied and enjoyed his art as he pursued it ; always there was
something in it that he Avould still attain.
His interest in engraving was a loyalty. He had pride in
its traditions and took great satisfaction in being allied to it
and recognized in it. He was pleased always to meet an-
other engraver and exchange points of view. His counsel
was often sought and willingly given. In the pressure of his
work he was often glad to introduce a proposed client to
some other engraver, and sometimes his health urged him to
this course. "It is not easy for me," he writes, "to be quiet
and tranquil, when there is so much I would like to do."
Aside from the idea of a book-plate there was little of
suggestion in the collection of Mr. French's sister-in-law to
which reference has been made. These plates were in large
part English, and of course armorial. Among them were
the Nathl. F. Moore, Rich'd Harison, Esqr., and Joseph
Murray, Esqr., this last the richest of them. The distinctly
American plates in the collection were crude though varied
17
EDWIN DAVIS FRENCH
in their rigid styles. The fantastic joke that Mr. French en-
graved and put with them was a very clever imitation, an
old-style plate as he intended it to be. But when he be-
gan Miss Brainerd's plate he threw precedent aside and
produced an original design. It is a complex plate, pictur-
ing its owner's home at Enfield and bearing the monogram
and name, cut as in stone; these are surrounded by a set-
ting of the wild roses and ox-eyed daisies of New England
and the freely-dealt-with "Chippendale" shell that already
under his hand impatiently burst into leafy scrolls.
His interest in Volapuk led to his second attempt, an al-
most symmetrical plate, built about the winged torch and
double globe symbol with the motto of the Volapiik Society,
with the legend, Lonol al Edwin Davis French, on a tablet
cased in a frame of "Chippendale" shells, which he again
uses as freely as its originator used the original shell.
His third book-plate, engraved for Mrs. French, shows
again his love of the rose, and he deftly studs the mono-
gram with the forget-me-not; making the monogram the
feature of the plate, he gives it proportion to the freer
scrollwork which he more fully commands.
In the next three plates he breaks from the confinement
of the rectangle, and furnishes three new varieties of the
monogram motive. He had already shown a liking to re-
view and correct his work by later judgment, and after a
change of thought. Few plates there are in the long list
but had some final touch, a shadow deepened here or a
scroll lengthened or restrained there, and, generally, some
little improvement where his client was probably already
content.
His own plate, No. 5, shown in its final state in this book,
was a marked evolution. Its main features he had at the
outset. Flowers blossom at top and bottom and in the
18
HIS ART
midst, and scrolls float lightly from the initials. At the
bottom he placed on record his chosen volumes from all the
world's libraries— Dante, Lucretius, Emerson, Virgil—
and an open book that breathes his love of nature, while
under these are the symbols of his chosen and favorite arts.
The later changes show the corners of a supporting frame
appearing from behind, and the readjustment of the ribbon
to bear his name. It is a very significant plate, not only
for the lavish decoration and for its combined delicacy and
cheering boldness, but because it is strongly and definitely
personal in its character.
These six plates were all in a sense the play of a man
whose play must show some result. "Produce," cries Car-
lyle, and to Mr. French such a voice was welcome. He was
now on the threshold of his fruitful career as an engraver
on copper.
On the fourteenth of January, 1894, he received a letter
from Mr. Beverly Chew stating that Miss Brainerd had
said that Mr. French was prepared to execute orders for
ex-libris, and asking for an interview. Mr. Chew wished
two plates, his own and that of the Players. He had readily
recognized the promise of the little sheaf of plates already
done ; their more than promise he had noted too, and he in-
dorsed his appreciation with good counsel to Mr. French
and with generous praise to his own friends.
Each of these two plates had its peculiar test. The
Players was a difficult design for the engraver, yet he ren-
dered the lights and shadows of a wash-drawing and the
doleful and jovial masks with success. Mr. Chew wished
an armorial plate, and that must bring comparison with the
heraldic engravers of all time. The shield and crest are
so executed that they at once suggest antiquity, and while
the plate has no uncertainty, it has no thought of the hard
19
EDWIN DAVIS FRENCH
machine-like work of much modern engraving-, a misfor-
tune skilfully avoided in the crisp scrolls and in the waving
palm.
Mr. Chew's double commission anticipated the similar
order of Dr. Clark by but a few hours. Hard upon these
four followed other orders and commendations from well-
known connoisseurs, the natural fruit of the six first plates.
The names of most of them stand early in the roll of plate
owners : — Mr. S. P. Avery, whose encouragement of Ameri-
can art was tireless ; Mr. John P. Woodbury, whose faithful
friendship had in it something akin to a father's pride ; Mr.
William Loring Andrews, who recognized Mr. French's
skill in almost every field of copper engraving, and secured
its use in numerous plates ; Mr. William E. Baillie, chief of
American book-plate collectors, eager and ceaseless in his
friendship; Mr. Charles Dexter Allen, whose "American
Book-Plates," containing four of Mr. French's plates,
printed from the coppers, won for him generally the title of
"Little Master," already given him by the German author-
ity, Count Leiningen Westerburg; and there were still
others. From them and through their introduction came
more commissions than Mr. French felt able to fill. He had
reason in the spring of 1894 to feel confident of his field.
It is not my purpose, nor is there need, to describe each
of Mr. French's book-plates. Their art is not conveyed in
words, and their personal features, for the American in-
dividualized book-plate is most distinctly associated with
Mr. French, of course, are not always at command. More-
over, private collectors have long since been busy gathering
them, and there are few persons actively interested in book-
plates who have not a valued group of his work. It is so
too with public collections.
In 1894 Mr. French was gratified to find his plates in the
20
HIS ART
Boston Museum, and the same year they were an important
part of the exhibition of book-plates held by the Grolier
Club. In 1898 nearly all that were then engraved, and
some in difterent states, were in the extensive collection
shown in Boston by the Club of Odd Volumes. An exhibition
entirely devoted to Mr. French's book-plates was held in
Cleveland in 1899, and through the summer of 1907 the
New York Public Library held, at the Lenox branch, an
exhibition of upward of two hundred, not only of the book-
plates but of the miscellaneous engravings as well.
A book-plate should be more than a decorative label. It
should have in motto or in symbol, and quite aside from its
art, some clear and lasting token of its owner. The splen-
did plate of the Worcester Art Museum, with its bronze-
like seal, flanked by torches and over it the generous motto,
"For the benefit of all the people of the City of Worcester,"
stamps the purpose of each volume that contains it.
The Edward Tompkins McLaughlin Memorial plate,
largely planned by the professor's friend, Mr. George Dud-
ley Seymour, is a more deeply impressive one. The pres-
ence of the chalice — the Holy Grail — suggests to his inti-
mates his interest in the Arthurian legends and his love of
Browning's line :
"Only grant my soul may carry high through death her
cupunspilled."
Closely associated with this reminder of the man is the bur-
den of his counsel, the motto from Matthew Arnold, "Think
clear, feel deep, bear fruit well." He thought that the poet
had in this verse expressed the best of modern culture. The
seal of Yale University, and the panel for the President's
autograph, and the name of the prize winner, complete the
plate.
21
EDWIN DAVIS FRENCH
The noble plate of Ernest Kempton Adams is a fine ex-
ample of this cardinal principle. The motto "Seek Truth,"
at the top, almost suggests a halo above the bust of Socra-
tes, which stands, with scientific instruments at either side,
on a small cabinet containing books, some without titles,
and some with the names of famous scientists. On the
dexter side is a small engraving of a cross-country rider
accompanied by a hound ; on the sinister side a Stradivarius
is represented incased in pansies. The relative placing of
these elements has its suggestive value, as, surrounded by
graceful ornament, they bespeak the character and pursuits
of the owner.
It would be difficult to find a purely symbolic design ren-
dered with more appreciation and evident delight than that
of the Candidati, which evidences character in a somewhat
different way. There is a touch of humor mixed with ear-
nestness in it that appealed to Mr. French. This plate is
used by the members of a circle of women writers. The
badge of the society, designed in jest, the bauble with the
initial "C," lies half buried underneath the manuscript and
finished books which represent the hope and achievement
of the members. An ominous boomerang, that is, a re-
turned manuscript, is there too. A full circle represents the
lasting friendship of the members. The wreath is the re-
ward, and across the whole lies the ribbon that bears the
name of the society or of one of its members.
Mr. W. K. Bixby's plate is a peculiar example of the in-
dividual design. He humorously accepted the generic slang
title of "octopus" given to large commercial combinations,
one of which he was president of, and appHed the idea to
collecting. Mr. French quizzically enjoyed making a design
that shows a fierce octopus in the center, reaching its tenta-
cles to every side in pursuit of the books and manuscripts
22
HIS ART
that tumble about in the seething water. Contradictory it
is, to be sure, but how novel and startling in its effect ! Few
of Mr. French's engravings furnish, in their different
states, a better study than this of his power and methods.
Even to the prosaic "book-pile," of which sort of book-
plate he engraved but one, that of Mr. Julian Marshall, Mr.
French gave individuality in the tokens of music and nature.
Partly it is these, partly the fine sense of proportion, partly
the perfect execution, that makes this the most beautiful
book-pile plate in existence.
The abstruse and technical science of heraldry has been a
problem to American engravers, and not unlikely to foreign
ones as well. Mr. French studied Fairbairn and Boutell to
good purpose, and gathered all hints that came to him on
that subject, and he so well availed himself of the decora-
tive opportunities it offered that his armorials are apace in
beauty with the more practised work of the foreign en-
gravers of any period. His armorial designs are usually
strong and decided, even when the insignia are supported
and surrounded by generous ornament. His trained eye al-
ways gave proportion to them, not less, but more clearly,
than to others. The roll of successes is a long one, yet
could it be done without seeming to forget others, I would
speak of the heraldic plates, each distinct in treatment, of
Mr. Varnum, Mr. Hopkins, Mr. Livermore, Mr. Gushing,
and the plate of Mrs. Whitin, as beautiful in its execution
as it is clever in its design.
Frequently designs mingle heraldry with other motives,
a more difficult matter. The plates of Mr. Talmage, Mr.
Gale, Mr. Baillie, Mr. Arnold Wood, and the Dean Hoff-
man Library, this last, one of Mr. French's most digni-
fied engravings, follow this method.
There is no class of designs in which an error so quickly
23
EDWIN DAVIS FRENCH
catches the eye as in the Hbrary interior. There is generally
a corner that is reluctant to be a right angle; and the per-
spective seems not to be less difficult because of its small
compass ; if it were larger an error might be lost in it. Oft-
times, too, the engraver has to work from a photograph,
has to correct its errors. The plates of the Union League
Club, Mr. Woodbury and Professor Gray, are notable ex-
amples in this sort; and the plate of Miss Robinson shows
more than the mastery of the difficulties of the style. The
first state of the plate showed a library lighted by the late
afternoon sun. Books, table, mantel, all were shaded to ac-
cord with a brighter window and a duller fire. The pleas-
anter hour of dusk was afterward decided upon, and the
fire glows more cheerily by reason of the waning day-
light. In either state we have a delicate appreciation of
light and shadow.
Mr. French would hardly choose a portrait for his
graver. Indeed, the miniature portrait has always been a
great test to engravers. He was inclined toward landscape
work and, as in painting so is it in engraving, the fields of
art seldom unite. In portraiture only is there ever a dis-
tinct effort in his finished work, and that is because he strove
to portray character, a difficult feat even at first hand.
There is strength and vigor and the man's character in the
Mark Skinner Library plate, just as the character of Dr.
Storrs, benignant yet commanding, is fixed in that of the
Long Island Historical Society. And one turns again and
again to the child portrait, brimming with eagerness and al-
together lovely, in Mrs. Prescott's plate.
The same flexibility with which Mr. French met the de-
sires of his clients in the designing and executing of their
book-plates, enabled him to successfully render the designs
by other artists that were from time to time submitted to
24
HIS ART
him. There lies a danger in this combination of designer
and engraver, for a heavy-line plate like those of the
Authors Club and Mrs. Ward, or a plate like Mr. Dana's
which combines both heavy and light lines, is simple as
compared with a wash-drawing that calls for photogravure
or mezzotint rendering— if the latter were within reach—
and may well dismay a line-engraver. Occasionally an-
other's design was suited exactly to Mr. French's art, and
he must have lent himself to it with zest. Such were Mr.
Tyron's designs of the Sovereign plates, that of Mr. Bell
for Mr. Osborn's plate, Mr. Curtis's design for the Cosmos
Club, the fine classic designs by Mr. Goodhue, and the de-
sign by Mr. Black of his own plate. I fancy Mr. French
must have treated these designs by other artists somewhat
as studies, quite as, in 1893, he studied and varied the
"Chippendale" plate of Samuel Vaughan adding much to
its grace; or, perhaps, as he reproduced the armorial plate
of Mr. Livermore after the copper was destroyed, adding
here and there in detail and giving what might be called a
second edition. Again, and more generally, he endeavored
to follow the design literally, as in the De Chaignon plate
and in the Acorn series of Old New York views.
It was his good fortune to execute many book-plates for
collectors and connoisseurs of national, or, rather, inter-
national repute, and, with deference it may be said that no
class of clients could be more particular or more exacting.
It must also have been a matter of pride to him that he was
called upon to design and execute the book-plates of so
many societies, clubs, and libraries. Those of the Grolier
Club and the Club of Odd Volumes almost record the his-
tory and the purpose of each. The Princeton University,
Union League Club, and Metropolitan Museum plates are
fine examples, incidentally, of the progress of art in this
25
EDWIN DAVIS FRENCH
class of book-plates, and more particularly of Mr. French's
aptness in rendering- a local or personal quality to plates
that in old days would have been but formal labels, or
worse, mere educational rhapsodies.
In this relation one cannot pass without mentioning the
splendid group of work he did for Harvard University,
comprizing the Hohenzollern, the Child Memorial, the
Harvard Union, the Societas Signatis, the Digamma Soci-
ety, and the Cercle Frangais book-plates, three of which are
from dignified designs by Mr. Goodhue. It is difficult to
choose between them in beauty or in fitness, though per-
haps by virtue of its purpose and its fame among plate
collectors the Hohenzollern stands distinct. No German
engraver, inspired by patriotism and breathing the air of
the Dlirer country, ever gave a wilder vigor and more tri-
umphant majesty to the eagle of the Hohenzollerns than
Mr. French has given it here. The circumstances govern-
ing the plate forced on it an unusual amount of text, which,
in its variety and balance, perhaps presents in it a better
study of what may be called the science of lettering than
any other of his book-plates. Lettering was not a branch
of the art that he particularly sought, however much he ex-
celled in it. He considered rather that for his purpose there
was in it neither nature nor human nature, whatever its
evolution might be. Writing to his friend, Mr. Baillie, he
discusses its difficulty, saying that it is a very "narrow
track to follow between having your work look as though it
were made with a machine and having it appear the work
of an unskilled and incompetent workman." This narrow
path he followed, where he could, and the character of the
plate admitted it, choosing the exacting- but always satis-
factory roman alphabet, which he varied by shading or by
an added graceful touch to the more flexible letters.
26
HIS ART
The Hohenzollern plate is also a good example that
might be duplicated among the private plates, of Mr.
French's unflagging interest in the desires of his client.
The design was long under discussion, letters on letters
passed to and from Mr. French, German and American
authorities were consulted, every possible detail was care-
fully considered and decided, and finally the plate was
struck oflf in various colors for the immediate purpose of
celebrating the advent of the Germanic Library for which
it was engraved, and the visit of Prince Henry to the Uni-
versity.
It seems a long step from this important group of col-
lege, library, and society plates, strong in their character, to
the larger group of ladies' book-plates that Mr. French
produced. These are so attractive in their delicacy and re-
finement, and in their widely different ornamentation and
symbolism, that if Mr. French had confined his attention to
this class of designing, they would have given him dis-
tinction. The plates of Miss Robinson, Mrs. Whitin, and
Miss Slade, are but three of many that might be cited with-
out approaching similarity. The exquisite plate of Miss
Lawrence, so ruthlessly sacrificed in an English reproduc-
tion, is fine and clear as an intaglio, perfect in its way, and
quite unlike the equally charming plates of Mrs. Wood,
Miss Cheney, Miss Adams, Miss Lefferts, Mrs. Lee, Miss
Messenger, Mrs. Gary, and Mrs. Metcalf. Taken together
they amaze one by their revelation of the pictorial possibil-
ities of the book-plate.
Mr. French's great delight in the work of the German
Little Masters helped him to follow in their footsteps and
produce in scarcely thirteen years this long series of nearly
three hundred book-plates, these little masterpieces of his
own. They won for him too the same title, of which
27
EDWIN DAVIS FRENCH
he was pardonably proud, and they have secured for him al-
most classic rank among engravers ; his fame might safely
be trusted to them. Yet he was drawn into other fields
at the very beginning of his engraving on copper.
Designs and medals, elaborately conceived and engraved
certificates of membership in societies of distinction, and
title-pages and illustrations for privately printed books,
were sought at his hand. The first of these miscellaneous
engravings was done for Mr. William Loring Andrews.
This strong and brilliant engraving, of the good ship Bri-
tannia, the packet in which Charles Dickens came to Amer-
ica, is the frontispiece of Mr. Andrew's brochure on Irving
and Dickens. "Please do not touch the plate further," writes
Mr. Andrews, "I do not think it could be improved." Here
lies the ship at anchor, looming in contrast to the smaller
craft shown in the distance, and standing out in a placid
harbor against an evening sky that engravers delight in, and
which furnished Mr. French his first opportunity to show
his technique in long, straight lines, now light, now heavy,
each line with its purpose in representing sky and cloud.
The "Chippendale" shell, already noted, is used in the bor-
der of the picture with such lightness and grace as I doubt
ever to see elsewhere. Here it is used with the freedom of
the Louis XV decoration and In good contrast with the for-
mal and regular use of it found much later in the book-
plate of Mr. Henry C. Bernheim.
It was for Mr. Andrews also that Mr. French engraved
his best example following the French spirit, in the title-
page to "Three French Engravers." With all the beauty
of the French engravings of this sort, their deftness of
shading and airy balance of ornament, there is something
in them that seems transitory, and sometimes even trivial.
Mr. French escapes the dangers of the national style, and
28
HIS ART
at the same time he gives a title-page as delicate and grace-
ful as the French masters themselves might desire.
In the complex, engraved title-page of "Andre's Jour-
nal," he displays a fine sympathy with his subject, making,
we may say, an American design suited to so important an
historical document. His own description is given in the
list of his miscellaneous engravings.
The title-page of Mr. Arnold Wood's "Bibliography of
the Complete Angler," is very different. Here is ample
text arranged on panels and cartouches which do not en-
croach in any way with the scroll decoration, but rather ap-
pear to float upon it, for it is nothing more nor less than
conventionalized water; ripples and swirls sweep over
the page, half obscuring the water plants, and from the
midst two wonderful dolphins peer out upon the reader,
and bear out the significance of the title.
The Certificate of the New York Historical Society, is
the largest plate that Mr. French produced. It is a singu-
larly fine composition, harmoniously associating a compre-
hensive variety of essential details and giving to each its
individual value; and is altogether a plate of great vigor
and notable brilliance. At the top, on a ribbon that folds
over the Colonial border of the plate, is the name of the so-
ciety. Under this, standing on a globe, is the American ea-
gle, realistically rendered. The seals of State and City are in
small cartouches beneath the globe, and at either side and
under these are three exquisite miniatures, depicting the
Half Moon sailing under the Palisades, Block's view of New
Amsterdam in 1650, and the present home of the society,
this last, one of Mr. French's finest architectural engravings.
Free flowing acanthus scrollwork incases and connects these
miniatures and symbols. The lower half of the plate is de-
voted to the membership inscription.
29
EDWIN DAVIS FRENCH
The hesitancy with which he approached these large
plates is curiously in contrast with his triumphs over them.
A certain trait in Mr. French's work appears more gen-
erously in the certificates than in any others of his engrav-
ings. It lies in the field, or cartouche, whereon is placed the
inscription and the name of the holder of the certificate.
This is not merely a field for lettering; it is not stippled;
nor is it lightly run across with faint lines or delicate cross-
hatching ; but it is engraved with infinite pains to represent
parchment, and most thoroughly it does so. A fountain
pen would ill be used upon it; it should be engrossed with
a quill or nothing.
The generous courtesy of Mrs. Holden allows the origi-
nal publication here of one of Mr. French's most signifi-
cant plates of general character, the Harvard Quadrangle.
As here represented, these old buildings have a reality;
there is no stiff formality about them ; they speak the digni-
fied welcome that the Quadrangle itself offers. The trees,
whose bark and leaves have life, arch gracefully over the
scene, which shimmers and glows with the sunlight and
suggests the atmosphere attained by a successful land-
scapist. Historically and alone the plate is notable, but it
seems also to fitly complete Mr. French's association with
Harvard.
It was Mr. French's good fortune to be largely associ-
ated as an engraver with the city of New York, and to have
the appreciative friendship of those interested in the pic-
turesque and historical points of the city; an interest that
resulted in a group of engravings, excelled perhaps by the
similar work of no other engraver. In these he rightfully
took great interest, for he loved his adopted home. The
Iconophile plates, a rare and much sought series of engrav-
ings of New York buildings of importance, represent several
30
HIS ART
that time in its march has now swept aside or materially
changed; the Distributing- Reservoir, the old Tombs, the
National Academy of Design, and Fraunce's Tavern, are
worthily recorded among them. In the Acorn series and in
New Amsterdam, and "The Old Book-Sellers of New
York," Mr. French very truthfully reproduced some fine old
views not easily gathered, and nowhere else found together.
In addition to these invaluable groups there are in the book-
plates of Mr. Blackwell, Mr. Andrews, Mrs. Plummer, the
Dean Hoffman Library, A. C. Bernheim, and Mr. Black,
and in the membership certificates, some choice miniatures
that those interested in New York views cannot overlook.
Time seems already to have given its test to much of
Mr. French's work. It is often what in verse we would
speak of as occasional, but with what imagination and
soul he has infused it and given it a lasting interest! He
gave himself quite wholly to his art, and with what may be
called a resolute enthusiasm. He could but put his own
character into his engravings, and that character was noble
in its strength and honesty and delicacy.
Ira Hutchinson Brainerd.
31
BOOK-PLATES
1 Helen | Elvira | Brainerd. | 1893 1893
a Background of cypher formed of dotted and continuous
alternate lines.
b Lines of background all continuous.
E.D.F. Sc.
2 Mary I Brainerd] French I 1893 1893
a Plate dark, unsigned.
b Plate lighter.
E.D.F. Sc.
3 Edwin Davis French 1893
E.D.F. Sc. 1893.
Mr. French's "Volapuk" plate.
4 Helen Elvira Brainerd. MDCCCXCIV .... 1893
EDFSc
5 EDF (Edwin Davis French) 1893
EDF. Sc.
a Without frame, in which form one hundred copies were
printed, Ex Libris on ribbon in centre.
b With frame added, and motto re-engraved. Printed in
brown, black, green and red.
c Change in motto, — imitare to imitari. Printed in black,
brown and blue.
d Full name, Edwin Davis French, in centre. Ex Libris on
33
EDWIN DAVIS FRENCH
ribbon at side, and signature replaced by ipse fee. This
change was made in 1901. Printed in brown, black and
green.
6 Cora Artemesia Leggett 1894
EDF. Sc. 1804
7 Beverly Chew 1894
EDFSc. 1894
8 Charles E. Clark, M.D. 1894 1894
EDFSc.
With books.
9 Charles E. Clark, M.D 1894
EDFSc. 1894
Floral.
10 In Memoriam. | Ellen Walters Avery. |
New York, March 25, 1893 1894
a Panel blank.
b As above.
EDFsc.
c With these words : Her books presented to Teachers Col-
lege 1897
11 William Loring Andrews 1894
E D French sc. 1894
12 The Oxford Club. Lynn 1894
EDFSc. 1894
13 The 1 Players \ Either for Tragedy | Comedy History. ]
Hamlet. Act II. | Scene II 1894
E.D.F. Sc. 1894-
34
BOOK-PLATES
Design by Howard Pyle.
a As above.
b A smaller plate, — a photogravure reduction three inches
high, retouched with graver by Mr. French, but with-
out his signature.
14 Whitelaw Reid 1894
E D French sc. 1894
A few proofs were taken with darker clouds and sky.
15 Marshall Clifford Lefferts 1894
E D French sc. 1894
16 Edward Hale Bierstadt 1894
E D French sc. 1894.
17 W. E. Baillie 1894
E D French fee. 1894
18 Colonial Dames of America 1894
a Panel and ribbon blank.
b Twelve proofs only, signed on ribbon.
E D French sc. 1894
c With copyright notice on ribbon.
EDF sc.
19 Charles B. Foote 1894
E D French sc, 1894.
a Rays from lamp overflow edge of medallion.
b Field of rays reduced, not touching medallion.
20 Henry Blackwell 1894
E D French sc. 1894
35
EDWIN DAVIS FRENCH
21 The Grolier Club 1894
a Before all letters, save titles of books. Leaf and scroll
work nearly all shaded. Open volume at bottom heavily
etched.
b Plate lettered, decoration shaded, open volume lightly
etched.
E D French sc. 1894
c Initials / A (Jost Amman) added in panel showing early
method of presswork and composition.
d Date, 1568, added after letters / A.
e An electrotype with the words No. — Case — Shelf — . This
electrotype was used, before the index words were added,
in printing the frontispiece of the small paper edition of
Mr. Allen's American Book-Plates. The copper plate
was used for the large paper edition.
22 Hiram Edmund Deats | Flemington, N.J 1894
a Upper part engraved, panel not lettered, lower part not
begun.
h As above.
E D French sc, 1894.
23 Edwin B. Holden 1894
E D French sc. 1894
a Left hand of figure, save index finger, closed, wreath promi-
nent. Plate destroyed after six impressions.
b The same design, left hand, save middle finger, open,
wreath close to head as in the antique, no motto.
c Motto from De Bury added.
The signature in b and c is above the date, in a, beneath it.
24 Edwin B. Holden 1894 1894
EDFSc.
The smaller plate, with open book at bottom of plate.
25 Alice C. Holden 1894
a Upright book not lettered.
36
BOOK-PLATES
b Engraving deeper cut; book lettered.
E D French sc. 1804
26 Edwin R. Holden 1894
E D French sc. 1894
27 John Page Woodbury. 1894 1894
o Foliage and ribbon only at top ; books outlined.
b View of Boston and library interior added.
c Books engraved, also portrait of Cruikshank. Plate com-
plete.
ED French sc.
A few proofs have remarque; an arbutus spray.
28 Richard B. Coutant 1894
a Books lack titles.
b Titles indicated.
E D French 1894
29 James J. Goodwin 1894
E D French 1894
30 Francis Goodwin 1894
E D French 1894
a Panel white, no titles on books.
b Church in panel, titles of books indicated.
31 Beverley Warner, M.A. . " 1894
E D French fee 1894
Proofs in two states.
32 Jonathan Godfrey | Fairfield, Conn 1894
a Unsigned.
b Signed, plate darker.
E D French sc. 1894.
37
EDWIN DAVIS FRENCH
33 Charles Conover Kalbfleisch 1894
E D French sc. 1894.
a Scales and feathers shaded.
h Scales not shaded, feathers shaded but lightly.
34 Henry Sherburne Rowe 1894
. E D French, 1894
a Stipple or horizontal lines used in background of two
small panels at sides.
b Slanting lines substituted for stippling.
Two states of proofs.
35 Emily Hoe Lawrence 1894
EDF 1894
36 James Hale Bates 1894
E D French sc. 1894
a Books under lamp not lettered.
h Books lettered.
37 Richard Southcote Mansergh | Friarsfield, | Tipperary. 1 895
a A few proofs taken before insertion of name.
h Without frame or signature.
c With frame and signature.
E D French sc. 1895
38 Louis L Haber 1894
E D French 1894
39 L B L (L. B. Lowenstein) 1895
EDF 1895
40 Library | of the ] Metropolitan Museum of Art |
New York City 1895
E D French sc. 1895
38
BOOK-PLATES
a With view of the Cruger Mansion, home of the Museum
from 1873 to 1878.
b With view of the home of the Museum in Central Park.
The word Purchased — in panel, a few dotted lines in
road.
c Road shaded in stipple.
d The same, with words Presented by — substituted. The
first variety appears both with and without the words
Case — Shelf — , the others only with them. Proofs have
word Proof.
41 E. D. Church 1895
EDF 1895.
a Outline of continents faint.
b Continents clearly defined.
42 A. C. Bernheim 1895
E D French Sc. 1895
43 Alice C. Bakewell. 1849-1893 1895
E.D.F. 1895
44 Charles B. Alexander 1895
E.D.F. 1895.
45 James J. Goodwin 1895
EDF 1895
46 James William Ellsworth 1895
ED French. 1895
47 Beverly Chew 1895
E D French sc. 189$.
48 Henry H. Vail 1895
E D French sc. 1893
a Cartouche notched an eighth of an inch at top.
b Cartouche notched three eighths of an inch.
39
EDWIN DAVIS FRENCH
49 Thomas Jefferson McKee 1895
EDF 1S95
50 M. Taylor Pyne. 1895 1895
E D French sc.
51 Micajah P. Clough. 1895 1895
a No date in plate.
EDF 1895
b As above.
EDFsc.
Adapted from a design furnished by the owner.
52 Henry A. Sherwin 1895
E D French sc 1895
53 Samuel F. Barger 1895
E.D.F. sc. 1895
54 Marias Gerard Messenger 1895 1895
E D French sc.
a No shading on lower dexter side of shield with Branden-
burg book-plate.
b Stipple shading added.
55 William Frederick Havemeyer 1895
Design by Thomas Tryon.
56 Theo. L. DeVinne 1895
Design by G. F. Babb.
C Thomas Mott )
57 J Agnes Devens^ Osborne 1895
a Framed, panel blank, flowers in outline.
b As above.
EDF
40
BOOK-PLATES
58 Frank Evans Marshall 1895
a Panel and ribbon white. Outside lower frame outline.
b Decoration nearly all shaded; frame shaded.
c As above.
E D French 1895
59 Champaign Public Library | This book was purchased | by
the [Julia F. Burnham j Memorial Fund. . . 1895
60 Biltmoris GWV 1895 1895
Design by the owner, George W. Vanderbilt.
a With date on cartouche.
b With date on ribbon.
Some early proofs, in olive ink, have the figure 5, incomplete.
Two trial proofs.
61 E H (Edith Holden) 1895
EDF
62 The I Club of Odd | Volumes 1895
a Upper half of plate engraved, the rest chiefly outline.
b Plate completed, somewhat dark.
E D French Sc. 1895
c Plate rubbed down, impression much lighter.
63 Percy Rivington Pyne 1895
E D French sc. 1895
64 J. King Goodrich 1895
EDF
65 William Lanman Bull 1895
E D French sc. 1895
41
EDWIN DAVIS FRENCH
66 Micajah Pratt Clough. 1896 1896
EDF sc
67 The Association of the Bar | of the City of New York. |
The Library of | Charles H. Woodbury, | a former mem-
ber of this Association, | was given to it by his widow, |
and this book forms part thereof. | 1 895
68 V. E. M. (Valentine Everit Macy) 1896
a Six unsigned proofs were printed before letters.
h With letters V.E.M. and No. . . Unsigned.
c Changed in igoo to
Valentine Everit ) , ,
Edith Carpenter j ^^^'^^'
EDF
69 Biltmoris GWV 1895 1896
Like No. 6o, but smaller, foliage slightly more elaborate. The
date, 1895, on prints only, refers to the design. Prints
without date also exist.
a With date on cartouche.
b With date on ribbon.
70 Tracy Dows 1896
EDF
A few trial proofs.
71 Sovereign 1896
Design by Thomas Tryon.
a In outline, before letters.
b Finished plate.
The Crown plate.
This design was originally process engraved. The name was
in the plate and there was no panel underneath. Several
sizes.
42
BOOK-PLATES
72 The Edward Tompkins McLaughlin | Memorial Prize in
English I Composition. Founded a.d. | MDCCCXCIV ]
Awarded to \ ] President . . 1896
a Three large panels and book blank.
b Panels engraved, no ornament in lower panel.
c Plate complete, as above.
E D French sc. 1896
73 Christian Archibald Herter 1896
E D French 1896
74 A. J. Morgan 1896
EDF 1896
a Portrait of Thackeray as grey haired.
b Thackeray younger, more erect.
75 Howard Willets 1896
EDF
a Lower panel blank.
b Portrait of George Cruikshank.
A few trial proofs.
76 Presented to \ , Esq"" | With the Compliments of |
William Loring Andrews 1896
a Flowers, books and ribbon only.
b Ribbon lettered; script lettering engraved.
EDF
c Lettering completed; frame added.
77 Robert Sedgwick 1896
a Without signature or date.
b Signed and dated.
E. D. French fee*, 1896
Signed proofs exist with tuft of crest lion's tail pointing back.
43
EDWIN DAVIS FRENCH
78 Chas I H [ Taylor | Jr 1896
EDFsc. 1896
Design by E. B. Bird.
Some proofs show slight changes in shading of sea and sails.
79 Sovereign 1896
Design by Thomas Tryon.
The Eagle plate.
80 Harriet Blair Borland 1896
EDFsc 1896
a Rays spring from flame, their field large.
h White ring about flame.
c Field of rays small : they spring from ilame.
81 Mary Emma Plummer 1896
a Books only engraved, rest in outline.
b Face shaded.
c View of New York outlined.
d Outlines filled in, plate lettered. Wake of boat rough.
E.D.French sc. 1896
e Water quite placid.
82 Henry A. Sherwin 1896
E D French sc. 1896.
Same as No. 52, one and three-quarters inches high, name
included. Two states of proofs.
83 The John Crerar | Library Chicago. [1894 . . . 1896
a Portrait engraved and background finished.
h Plate completed. As above.
E D French sc. 1896
c With words Presented by —
44
BOOK-PLATES
84 The Denver Club 1896
Design by Cora E. Sargent.
a With name of designer. A few impressions only.
b Signature added. A few only.
EDF sc.
c Engraving lighter. Name of designer and signature erased
85 Edwin Ruthven Lamson 1896 1896
Design by Edmund H. Garrett.
a Twelve proofs were taken without letters.
b Name and address in panel.
E D French sc.
Trial proofs exist with the three graces engraved, border in
outline.
86 Maria Gerard Messenger 1896 1896
Dono • Hunc • Librum • Dedi.
E D French
a With panel blank.
b With books.
c With child's portrait. Four copies only.
d With view of Pleasantville Library.
e With inscription: Associata \ Bibliothecani S. Marice \ Sci-
entice Sacrce. \ St. Mary's School, 8, East 46th Street \
New York City.
87 Catherine A. Bliss. . . . : 1896
EDF 1896
A few trial proofs.
88 The Collection of [ Tho^ Addis Emmet M.D ] Presented by |
John Stewart Kennedy [ to the | New York Public Li-
brary I Astor, Lenox and Tilden Foundations. 1 1 896. 1 896
EDF
45
EDWIN DAVIS FRENCH
89 Adelle Webber Gray 1897
EDF
90 O. A. K. (O. A. Kahn) 1897
E D French 1897
91 Lucy Coleman Carnegie 1897
EDF (Script cypher.)
92 Robert H. McCarter 1896
EDF- 1896
93 John Lloyd Stearns 1897
EDF (Script cypher.) 1897
Proofs in two states.
94 Edith Davies Kingsbury 1897
Design by Lilian C. Westcott.
a Without signature or date.
b With signature and date.
E D French sc. 1897
95 Juliani- Marshall. MDCCCXCVI 1897
a Upper part of plate, save music roll, finished; the lower
part in outline.
h Complete, signed.
ED French Sc.
Twenty proofs of this plate, some in black, some in reddish
brown, and one with half the plate in sepia and half in
black tempered with carmine, have, as a remarque, a por-
trait in drypoint of Mr. French by himself.
96 Candidati 1897
E D F sc (Script cypher.)
a Without name of owner.
46
BOOK-PLATES
b With name, Helen Runyon Belknap, in curved line below
the design.
There are several electrotype variations of this plate but the
above are the only impressions from the original copper.
Some of the later plates carry the owner's name beneath
the design while some carry it on the ribbon and omit
the word Candidati: —
c Helen Hunt Daly.
cc Helen Keyes.
d Margaret Chase Wilson.
e Sara King Wiley.
/ Georgiana Goddard King.
g Kate Dickinson Sweetser.
h Eveline Warner Brainerd.
Two states; name under the plate, and on ribbon.
j Ellen Rose Giles.
k Elsie Lewis Day.
/ Louise Collier Wilcox.
97 William Connell 1897
EDF (Script cypher) j597
98 Authors Club Library 1897
Design by George Wharton Edwards.
Outside measure, 3^ inches high.
The engraved plate by Mr. French is not to be confounded
with a process plate slightly larger made from the same de-
sign.
99 Ruth Mary Sabin
a Horse's head in outline, upper sinister corner of plate not
engraved.
EDF
b Horse's head engraved ; golf clubs in upper corner.
100 Child Memorial | Library | To | Harvard University | In
47
EDWIN DAVIS FRENCH
Memory of | Francis James Child | First Professor of
English 1897
E.D.French sc. 1897
A small engraved frame, unsigned, with the words — The Gift
of . . . accompanies plate No. 100.
101 The Mark Skinner | Library. Manchester | Vermont. |
MDCCCXCVII 1898
EDFsc.
a Hair in portrait shaded but lightly.
b Hair somewhat darker.
c Deep shading in oval frame closely confined to dexter side.
d With words Presented by —
Working proofs exist with ribbon, book, and panel unen-
graved ; portrait finished.
102 Paul Lemperly, His Book 1897
a Frame only, unsigned, undated. A few proofs.
b Panel completed. Monk's cheek heavily shaded.
Five proofs only.
E D French fee. 1897.
c Monk's face lightened.
( Henry Clay )
^03 ^ Helen Burgess ^ R^^^^y ^^^^
E D French 1897.
104 Edward F.Burke 1897
EDF 1897
a With leopard crest. Six proofs.
b Catamount substituted for leopard.
105 MolHe Cozine Lefferts 1897
EDFsc. 1897
48
f>
1.1BRAR"V OF
PR INCH TON
BOOK-PLATES
106 Mary I Minturn I Hartshorne 1897
Design by Miss E. Brown.
a As above.
b Name changed to Mary | Minturn | Ward.
107 M. Taylor Pyne 1897
E D French Sc. i8g7
a Ribbon blank save for word Pyne.
b As above.
c An electrotype with name changed to Percy Rivington
Pyne.
No proofs were taken after letters.
108 Library of I Princeton I University 1897
E D French fee. 1897.
109 Florence de Wolfe Sampson 1898
EDF (Script cypher.)
110 Abraham Goldsmith 1898
EDF (Script cypher.)
111 George Allison Armour 1898
EDF (Script cypher. )
a Book without inscription.
b Book inscribed. Minor touches in shading plate.
112 A. Dwight Stratton 1898
EDF
113 Samuel W. Lambert 1898
EDF
114 Barrett Wendell 1898
EDF. 1898.
a Flag at stern of ship.
b Flag removed.
49
EDWIN DAVIS FRENCH
115 Ex Libris Medicis 1898
EDF
Used by several members of the Gushing family.
Design by one of the owners.
116 Vassar Alumnge | Historical Association. |
MDCCCXCVI 1898
E D French sc. 1898.
Some impressions are without the date 1898.
117 Samuel Smith Sherwood 1898
EDFsc 1898
1 18 The Association of the Bar [ of the City of New York, j
The John E. Burrill Fund 1897
This is similar to No. 67, yet fuller in decoration.
119 The Association of the Bar | of the City of New York. |
Gift of James C. Carter 1898
a As above.
b Lower line broken to read Gift of \ James C. Carter.
c Without name James C. Carter.
Same in design as No. 118.
120 Henry Rogers Winthrop. 1898 1898
E.D.French sc.
a Sky denoted by broken and somewhat heavy lines.
b Sky reengraved, in continuous fine lines, figure and foliage
retouched.
Proofs in two states.
121 James A. Goldsmith 1898
EDF
50
'^lARY BARBER
CHESTER PLACE
BOOK-PLATES
122 Twentieth Century | Club | Ex Dono 1898
EDFsc.
Design by Evelyn Rumsey Carey.
a As above.
b Without panel at bottom which carries the "Ex Dono" in-
scription.
123 Frederick W. Van Wagenen 1898
EDF 1898 (Script cypher.)
Proofs in two states.
124 Georgette Brown 1898
Design based on an Eighteenth Century copper plate.
a Without border, a few proofs only.
h Slight alteration in figures. A bright spot on stone seat.
c With heavy cross-hatched border added.
125 Jennings Stockton Cox 1898
EDF
126 E. P. Williams 1898
EDF
127 Katherine Cecil Sanford Thome. 1896 . . . . 1898
E D French Sc
a As above.
h The Gift of Katherine Sheffield, and i8g6 at top erased.
128 Florence Coleman Nimick 1898
E D French
129 James Edmund Scripps 1898
EDFsc.
Design by Albert Kahn, 1896.
51
EDWIN DAVIS FRENCH
a Upper third of plate engraved, the rest in outline.
b Two heavy lines on dexter side of western tower of cathe-
dral ; four windows in small tower.
c These lines light; six windows in small tower.
130 Arnold Wood. New York MDCCCXCVIII . . . 1898
E D French sc.
I
131 Charles L. Dana 1898
Design by A. Kay Womrath.
132 Eva I Snow | Smith | Prescott | 1898 1898
E D French sc
Some proofs have remarque in red or in black; a toy house
and soldier.
133 Sidney Ernest Bradshaw 1898
E D French sc. 1S98.
a Back of Burns volume without decoration.
b With three heraldic roses.
134 Edward Swan Stickney | Presented to the Chicago | His-
torical Society by | Elizabeth Hammond Stickney |
+ ObitJulyXIMDCCCXCVII+ 1898
a As designed, outlined and commenced by Mr. French.
Owing to ill health he requested Mr. J. W. Spenceley to
continue it.
b Nearly completed by Mr. Spenceley.
c Finished by Mr. French, the last work being the head of
Hermes, with final touches.
E D French sc. 1898
135 John P. Talmage. MDCCCXCIX 1899
E D French fee
52
BOOK-PLATES
136 Edward Courtland Gale 1899
E D French fee. 1899
a With motto Tiens la foy.
b Motto changed to Tiens ta foy.
137 Ethel Hartshorne Wood 1899
a Titles of books not indicated.
b Titles indicated.
E D French fee 1899
138 Henry Ren wick Sedgwick 1899
E.D.French fee. 1899
139 Emil Leopold Boas 1899
EDF 1899
140 Louise Taylor Hartshorne Moore MDCCCXCIV . 1899
E D French '99
a As above.
b Louise Taylor Hartshorne Leeds.
141 Charles Dexter Allen 1899
E D French fee. 1899
a Large panels empty, upper sinister small panel has a
charming reduced engraving of the Authors Club book-
plate.
b With portrait in oval ; proofs only.
c Books in oval.
d Books in oval, and seal of Bibliographical Society substi-
tuted for that of Caxton Club.
Proofs of d have remarque; Mt. McKenzie as seen from Mr.
French's studio.
142 Allan C. Bakewell 1899
Portrait engraved by S. Hollyer.
a Portrait engraved, — rest of plate in outline.
53
EDWIN DAVIS FRENCH
b Plate complete, as above.
EDF
There exist a few proofs of a slightly smaller plate, with
much smaller oval. It is in outline save that the portrait is
completed.
( George Van Wagenen ]
143 I Margaret Van Nest | D^ryee 1899
EDF 1899
a Four horizontal lines across windows.
b Windows have diamond panes added.
Some proofs of b have remarque; a pine tree.
144 A W (Arnold Wood) 1899
EDF 1899
145 Gushing. [Armorial] 1899
146 John Skelton Williams 1899
EDF 1899
147 H B (Henry Blackwell.) 1899
148 K M (Katharine Mackay.) 1899
EDF
149 Gornelia Horsford 1899
EDF sc 1899
a Landscapes quite dark.
b Landscapes lightened, and horse reengraved.
150 To 1 with compliments of | Henry Blackwell. 1899
E D French Sc 1899.
a Some proofs are with blank panels.
b Panels filled with New York views.
54
BOOK-PLATES
151 Maria Gerard Messenger and Elisabeth Chamberlain |
The Orchards 1899
E D French sc. i8gg
a Dark, one broken line in roof shading.
b Lighter, roof shaded in unbroken lines.
152 Treadwell Library j Massachusetts General Hospital | The
Gift of 1899
Design by B. G. Goodhue.
There are proof impressions without the inscription.
153 This volume, | for insertion in which the Author | has been
pleased to write his name, | | is the property
of I Paul Lemperly 1900
E D French Sc. igoo
154 The University Club. | Cleveland, | MDCCCXCVIII. 1900
E D F igoo
155 Robert Emmet Hopkins 1900
E D French Sc. igoo
156 Alice S. Cheney 1900
E D French fee. igoo.
157 The Union League Club. | New York | 1863 . . . 1900
ED F igoo
a All windows clear.
h Stained glass window and Venetian blinds engraved; clear
sjpace, unshaded, on floor.
c Venetian blinds erased.
d Floor entirely shaded in stipple ; two shadows, line en-
graved, starting from lower sinister corner, point toward
center of floor.
e Venetian blinds restored.
55
EDWIN DAVIS FRENCH
f The two shadows (d) increased, nearly blended, extend
beyond centre of floor.
g Words Presented by added.
The first six states, framed, hang in the Club Library.
158 C. L. F. Robinson. | Newport, R. 1 1900
E D French fee. 1900
159 John R. Livermore 1900
E D French Sc 1900.
This plate was destroyed by fire, and reengraved by Mr.
French ; see No. 280.
160 Nathan T. Porter, Jr. « 1900
E D French 1900
Prints show retouching of figure.
161 Silas Wodell 1900
E D French 1900
162 RJS 1900
EDF 1900
163 New York I Yacht Club I Librar>' 1900
Design by Walter G. Owens.
a Sails all white.
b With shading of sails.
c Sails lighter. Ship's stern slightly changed.
E.D. French Sc. 1900
d Presented by —
Proofs exist without signature.
The original design, amended by Mr. French, passed through
three trial proofs to the final state, as shown by the framed
series in the Club Library.
A small process reproduction is used in small books.
56
BOOK-PLATES
164 Walter B. James, M.D 1900
ED F igoo
a Very dark, rays from sun touch mountain.
b Light, rays do not touch mountain.
165 Lucy Maynard Salmon. MDCCCC 1900
E D French Sc
166 John H. Buck 1900
Design by Marian Buck.
a Unsigned.
b Has a hawk in the sky.
EDFsc.
167 Elisabeth Chamberlain 1 The Orchards 1900
ED F igoo.
168 Margaret H. Foot 1900
E D French igoo
169 John W. & Lee Partridge | Loveland 1900
E D F sc. igoo
Proofs unsigned and undated.
170 Amy B.Alexander 1900
ED F igoo
171 James Wilson Bullock MDCCCC 1900
E D French Sc
a Minerva's face white, space under oval white. No date in
roman figures.
b Face engraved. Date and study from Paul Potter's bull
added.
c Portrait of Washington substituted for bull.
57
EDWIN DAVIS FRENCH
172 Arthur West Little 1900
E D French Sc. Dec. igoo.
173 John B. Larner. | Washington, D. C 1900
E D French sc. igoo
174 Ruth Adams 1900
ED F igoo
175 M. C. D. Borden 1900
A replica of No. 71, with an eagle instead of the crown, and
change of name.
176 M. C. D. Borden 1900
Same as No. 175 but smaller. Height i^ inches.
177 S. Walter Woodward | Washington, D. C 1901
ED F igoi
178 Sarah Elizabeth Whitin 1901
ED F igoi
179 William Watts Sherman 1901
EDFSc. igoi
Design by B. G. Goodhue.
180 John Sanford Barnes 1901
ED F igoi
181 Bibliotheca ] Societatis | Signeti | in Academia Harvard-
iana| Ex Bono | 1901
E D French Sc igoi
Design by B. G. Goodhue.
58
BOOK-PLATES
182 The Worcester I Art Museum. I The Gift of— . . 1901
E D French Sc. igoi
183 Hartshorne 1901
ED F igoi.
a Signed.
h Unsigned, and with mantling reduced.
184 Harbor Hill | 1901 1901
EDF
185 Mabel Carleton Gage • • • 1901
EDF sc. iQOi
Design by owner.
186 Library | of the | Harvard | Union | The Gift of | James
Hazen Hyde | of the class of 1898 | in memory of |
Henry Baldwin Hyde I M C M 1901
E.D.F.SC.
Design by B. G. Goodhue.
a As above.
b Date altered to MDCCCC.
E.D.F. sc. igoi
c The Gift of
d With inscription A gift | in Memory of \ Robert Fields
Simes \A. B. 1885. LL. B. and A. M. 1888 \ 1901
Plates a and b printed from the original copper; c and d
from electrotypes retouched with graver by Mr. French.
187 Frances Amelia Adams 1901
EDF igoi
Proofs and prints show a slight difference in the miniature
of Emerson.
59
EDWIN DAVIS FRENCH
188 Roger Bigelow Merriman 1901
ED F 1901
a Mountains in outline.
b Mountains shaded. Forequarters of lion darkly shaded.
c Lion uniformly shaded.
d Mountains and clouds lighter.
Plate contains view of Mt. Washington and shields of Har-
vard and Balliol.
189 William Phillips 1901
E D Fsc 1901
Design by P. deC. la Rose.
a Signature on a single line.
b Two slits on sinister side of helmet.
c Signature and date E D F \ sc \ IQOI, in small circle.
190 Sarah Rodman Baldwin 1901
Design by Addison B. Le Boutillier.
191 Walter Davis Richards 1825-1877 1901
ED F igoi
192 Long Island | Historical Society | Storrs Memorial |
Fund 1901
a As above, inscription in open-face lettering on white back-
ground, book in lower corner blank.
Two trial proofs preceding a, are preserved by the Society.
b Lettering and panel shaded, book decorated.
E D French igoi
c With inscription : Long Island Historical Society \ Bequest
of the I Rev. Richard Salter Storrs, D. D., LL. D. \ for the
Enlargement of the \ Department of Ecclesiastical His-
tory I MDCCCC.
60
BOOK-PLATES
193 Library of the | Society of Colonial Wars 1 in the State of
Connecticut 1901
Cypher EDF 1901
Proofs in two states.
194 Field Memorial ] Library Conway | Massachusetts \ Built
A.D. MCMI I Class ] Book No. ] Accession No. . 1901
Originally printed in type at the Merrymount Press and from
this engraved by Mr. French.
195 The Adriance Memorial | Library. | Poughkeepsie . 1902
Cypher EDF 1902
196 James M. Vamum 1902
Cypher EDF 1902
197 James B. Dill. MDCCCCII 1902
Cypher EDF
a As above, with portrait, slightly turned to sinister side, en-
graved by S. HoUyer.
b Has, underneath, the words : Vol. No Shelf No
c A full face portrait, by J. A. J. Wilcox, substituted. A few
impressions with scarf light, afterward changed to dark.
Working proofs show plate in outline, portrait and diamond
figured mat engraved.
198 Dorothy Furman 1902
Cypher EDF 1902
199 Edward Dean Adams. 1902
Cyplter EDF 1902
Two states of proofs exist.
200 Natala Washburne Bishop 1902
E D French fecit 1902
Four states of proofs exist.
61
EDWIN DAVIS FRENCH
201 Digamma Library 7902 | The Gift of 1902
a No date at top. Wolf in outline on white shield.
b As above.
EDFsc.
202 John Chipman Gray 1902
a One book on rug stands on its fore edge.
b This book replaced by two, one lying on the other.
Cypher ED F 1902
203 Edward Duff Balken 1902
ED F sc igo2
Design by George Greene amended by Mr. French.
o Shelf extends beyond window line.
h Shelf reduced, books under window darkened.
204 R. Stockton Pyne 1902
Cypher ED F igo2
a Ermine charges have three flourishes.
b The conventional three dots substituted for the flourishes.
205 William Beverley Rogers 1902
a Head and neck of crest plain.
b Head and neck of crest cross-hatched.
Cypher ED F igo2.
206 The Washington County | Free Library. Hagerstown |
Maryland I MDCCCCI 1902
Cypher E D F igo2
a Border in outline. Portrait unfinished, background shaded.
b Portrait finished, background reshaded.
Proofs exist in several states.
62
BOOK-PLATES
207 Ernest Kempton Adams 1902
Cypher EDF igo2
a Violin lightly shaded.
b Shading heavier, chin rest added.
208 Walter B. Adams 1902
Cypher EDF 1902
209 Nona Newlin Hooper 1902
Cypher EDF 1902
210 John Gerard Heckscher ,1902
Cypher EDF 1902
a One palm tree.
h Two palm trees.
c Mouth of tarpon closed.
211 Charles D. Armstrong 1902
Not designed by Mr. French.
a No inscription on tablet.
b Inscription added.
212 Ira Hutchinson Brainerd 1902
EDF 1902
a Outline of ledges clearly defined by white lines.
b This white defining line graved over, mountains shaded
more softly, adding distance.
William Henry and
2^3 ^Katharine French ^ Bumham 1902
E D French 1902
a Chevron argent,
b Chevron or.
63
EDWIN DAVIS FRENCH
214 Homer Gage 1902
Design by Mabel Carleton Gage.
ED F sc. igo2
215 Wynne Winslow 1902
Cypher E D F igo2
216 From the Library of the Very | Rev. Eugene Augustus
Hoffman, | D. D., LL. D., D. C. L 1903
Cypher EDF 1903
217 Wilhelmus Mynderse 1903
a Without signature or date.
h Signed and dated.
E D F sc. 1903
218 LMP (Lowell Mason Palmer.) 1903
Cypher EDF 1903
The palm plate.
219 LMP (Lowell Mason Palmer.) 1903
EDF 1903
The chrysanthemum plate.
220 Edward Duff Balken 1903
Cypher EDF 1903
a Upper part of plate nearly filled with scrolls.
h Scroll work much thinner showing cross-hatched back-
ground, e.g., lower dexter side of globe.
221 Philip Lippincott Goodwin 1903
Cypher EDF 1903
64
'. 13.D.,LI.J>.,I>.C.I.
BOOK-PLATES
222 W C W (W. C. Wood.) 1903
Cypher ED F 1903
a Lower end of C turns out.
b Lower end of C turns in.
223 De la Bibliotheque | du | Cercle Frangais ] de I'Universite
Harvard 1903
Cypher ED F 1903
a With cypher at top, made of letters J H H.
Of this there were forty autograph proofs in black, ten in red
and five in blue.
b With portrait of Moliere at top, replacing cypher.
Of this there were twenty autograph proofs in black, ten in
red and five in blue.
224 Ruth Lancaster Hoe 1903
Not designed by Mr. French.
a With one figure in canoe.
b Canoe changed, contains a dog also.
EDFSc
225 Charles WilHston McAlpin 1903
Cypher EDF 1903
226 Herman Simon 1904
Design by Thomas Tryon.
Proofs in two states.
227 The Henry A. Rowland | Memorial Library . . . 1903
Cypher EDF 1903
228 William Augustus Brewer 1903
Cypher EDF 1903
a Trunk of tree by gate is light and dark.
b Tree entirely dark, plate lighter.
65
EDWIN DAVIS FRENCH
229 "Warner Mifflin and Louise Hartshorne Leeds.
MDCCCCI 1903
E D French 1903.
230 Annie Lyman 1903
Cypher ED F 1903
231 Caroline Seagrave Bliss 1903
Cypher E D F 1903
232 Clark University 1904
Design by Mabel Carleton Gage.
a Frame work and the three flowers in centre unshaded, no
signature or date.
b Frame work, and flowers shaded, but unsigned.
c With signature.
E.D.F. sc. 1904
233 Elizabeth Sage Goodwin 1903
Cypher ED F 1903
234 Cincinnati Law Library I Rufus King Fund. . . . 1903
Cypher ED F 1903
235 Lowell Melvin Palmer 1904
E D French. 1904.
a Motto, Ultra aspicio.
b Motto, Palma virtuti.
Some proofs have no motto.
236 Herman Simon 1904
E.D.French sc 1904
Design by Thomas Tryon. Reduction of 226.
Frame four and three-sixteenths inches high.
Proofs in three states.
66
BOOK-PLATES
237 Mary Barber Robinson | Chester Place .... 1904
Cypher E D F igo4
a Window much lighter than in b and other shading is in
accord.
b Window darkened. Plate reshaded.
238 Katherine Cecil Sanford Sheffield. 1904 . . . 1904
Cypher ED F IQ04
239 Harvard College Library | Hohenzollern Collection | In
commemoration of the visit of | His Royal Highness |
Prince Henry of Prussia | March sixth, 1902 j On behalf
of His Majesty | The German Emperor | Presented by
Archibald Cary Coolidge, Ph.D., | Assistant Professor
of History 1904
E D French Sc. igo4
a As above.
b No commas in next to last line and no period after History.
Proof impressions with remarque (a small Roman lamp)
were printed, seventeen copies each in red and blue, and
twenty-nine in black, all on Japan vellum with the excep-
tion of three of the impressions in black, which were on
India paper.
A panel was later added at bottom for the insertion of names
of donors of books.
There is a photo electrotype reduction, about four inches high.
240 Library of the | American Institute | of | Electrical Engi-
neers 1904
E D French fee. 1904.
a As above.
Electrotypes are as follows :
b The Gift of | Edward D. Adams
c The Gift of \ Schuyler Skaats Wheeler
ccA. zinc reproduction of c four inches high.
d The Gift of \ The Carnegie Fund
e The Gift of
67
EDWIN DAVIS FRENCH
Associated with e dies are used to record gifts of :
/ Thomas A. Edison.
g Bion J. Arnold.
h C. O. Mailloux.
j Charles L. Clarke,
k Cary T. Hutchinson.
I W. D. Weaver,
m Nathaniel S. Keith,
n Joseph Wetzler.
W. J. Johnston,
p Edward Caldwell
Associated with a similar dies are used for :
q The Gift of the New York \ Electrical Society
r The Gift of the American \ Bell Telephone Company
s The Gift of the \ McGraw Publishing Company
Proofs are unsigned and have word Proof in panel.
241 Mabel Slade 1904
ED F igo4
a Large tree has much foliage, clouds quite heavy.
h Foliage on large tree much thinner, clouds lighter.
242 Henry C. Bernheim 1904
Cypher E D F 1904
243 Henry Fairfield Osborn 1904
EDFSc (Script cypher.)
Design by Edward Hamilton Bell.
244 George Edward Dimock 1904
Cypher E D F igo4
245 Benjamin Barnes Lovett MDCCCCIIII .... 1904
E D French sc. 1904
a Has no date in plate.
b Date in plate in roman numerals. Some proofs have re-
marque: an open book on a branch.
68
BOOK-PLATES
246 Winfred Porter Truesdell 1904
Cypher ED F 1904
a Without letters.
b As above.
Some proofs have retnarque: a halberd.
247 William Bateman Leeds 1904
Cypher ED F 1904
248 Samuel Verplanck Hoffman 1904
Cypher ED F 1904
A few proofs have the crest shaded but lightly.
249 Henry H. Harper 1904
Cypher ED F 1904
Proofs in two states.
250 Mary Bryant Sprague 1904
E.D.F. sc. 1904
Design by P. de C. la Rose.
Some proofs are unsigned.
251 Mary Bryant Sprague 1904
E.D.F. sc. 1904
Same in design as No. 250. but smaller— three inches high.
252 Francis Bunlcer Greene 1904
ED F 1904
a As above.
b With words Library of.
253 Georgia Medora Lee MDCCCCIV 1904
Cypher ED F
Some proofs have retnarque; book in wreathed spray.
69
EDWIN DAVIS FRENCH
254 John Notman 1904
ED F igo4.
255 Lucy Wharton Drexel 1904
Cypher E D F 1904
256 Gertrude Clarkson Welsh 1904
Cypher ED F 1904
257 Katharine Thomas Gary 1905
Cypher ED F 1905
a Trunk without shading.
h Trunk shaded.
Some proofs of b have remarque; view of Whiteface in the
Adirondacks.
( Theodore )
258 I Eleanor [ Taft 1905
Design by C. Grant La Farge.
259 Harriette M. Stevens 1905
Cypher EDF 1905
a Hills uniformly shaded, light. Proofs only.
h Hills at dexter side darker.
260 Mary Lois Seagrave Downes 1 905
EDF 1905
261 Ethel Hartshorne Wood 1905
EDF. 1905
a Signed in circle.
h Signed in body of plate.
262 Davis Righter Vail 1905
Cypher EDF 1905
70
BOOK-PLATES
263 Queen's University | Kingston Canada 1905
Cypher EDF 1905
264 George Harvey 1^05
Design by J. Venier.
a Without signature.
b Signed.
EDFsc.
265 Lucius G Fisher 1905
E D French fee 1905
a Dotted line from dorsal fin to tail.
b Fish shaded for rotundity, water improved.
266 Mary Nixon Smith 1905
Cypher EDF 1905
a Clover blossom at top dark.
b Clover shaded light on dexter side.
267 John S. Holbrook 1905
Design by owner. An earlier process plate exists.
a Prints unsigned.
b Prints signed.
EDF. sc. 1905
Proofs are unsigned.
268 Martha A. Symon 1905
Cypher EDF 1905
269 George J. Gould. 1 Georgian Court 1906
270 Parke E. Simmons . 1906
Cypher EDF 1906.
71
EDWIN DAVIS FRENCH
271 Henry Van Deventer Black 1906
Design by the owner.
a Sky nearly clear, clouds only at edge.
b Sky overspread with clouds.
272 Elizabeth Jordan 1906
E.D.F.
Design by J. Venier.
273 The Cosmos Club 1906
EDFsc
Design by William Fuller Curtis.
274 Emma Stewart Bixby 1906
Cypher EDF igo6
275 W K Bixby 1906
Cypher EDF igo6
a Four marks on body of octopus.
h Six marks.
c Three marks.
The three states show marked differences in shading of octo-
pus, books and water; careful studies of a difficult and
novel subject.
276 Julius C. and Emily S. Bernheim 1906
a Sky uniformly shaded and rather dark. Star very distinct,
distant water uniformly shaded.
h Sky lighter near star, distant water shows bars of light
corresponding to outline of trees.
Cypher EDF igo6
277 John R. Sayler 1906
Cypher EDF igo6
72
BOOK-PLATES
(LHJ)
278 ) s E J ( (Jackman) MDCCCCVI
Cypher EDF
279 Cora Paschall Davis 1906
Cypher EDF igo6
a Letter A in the name has curved line on sinister side, re-
sembling the letter R.
b The letter A is reversed, curved line being on dexter side.
280 John Walton Livermore 1906
E D French Sc. igoo-igo6
a A few proofs were taken with name John R. Livermore.
b As above.
This plate is nearly a replica of No. 159 though the detail of
engraving differs in the two plates.
281 Esther Pierce Metcalf 1906
Cypher EDF igo6
282 Utica Public Library. | From the | John E. Brandegee
Fund 1906
E D French igo6
a No lettering over door. Proofs only.
h Name of Library and date of building added. Prints.
283 The Yale Club of | New York | City 1906
Design by Howard Pyle.
EDFSc. igo5.
Proofs in four states.
284 Henry Clay Frick 1906
Cypher EDF igo6
73
EDWIN DAVIS FRENCH
285 Beverly Chew 1896
A small oval plate, stamped in gold upon leather of different
colors from a die designed by Mr. French.
286 Henry A. Smith 1898
Engraved by J. W. Spenceley. Design by Mr. French.
287 J. Hood Wright 1897
Design by Mr. French, following the book-plate of Daniel
Webster. Engraver unknown.
288 Byrd 1899
A reengraving of the Jacobean book-plate of William Byrd
of Westover in Virginia Esqr.
a Before all letters. A few proofs.
h George H. Byrd of New York.
. Electrotypes were then made for the following: —
c Richard Evelyn Byrd of Wincliester in Virginia.
d William Byrd of New York.
e Francis Otway Byrd.
289 William and Helen Woodruff Tatlock 1893
a Before letters— a few proofs.
b With Edwin Davis French | Saranac Lake, N. Y. printed in
red from a letter-head die. In this form 50 copies were
printed, a few of them by printer's error with the frame
reversed, top for bottom.
c The joint plate, as above.
d An electrotype with name; William Tatlock.
290 For the Volapiik Exhibit at | the Columbian Exposition
in I Chicago MDCCCXCIII. Loaned | by E. D. French,
217 West I Thirteenth Street, New York.
74
BOOK-PLATES
This label in small capitals and half bordered was inserted in
the Volapiik books loaned by Mr. French to the Chicago
Exhibition in 1893. Though printed, it is included here
for it was Mr. French's first book-plate.
291 W. L. Andrews.
A leather label, designed by Mr. French.
A myrtle wreath inclosing motto and name.
292 Marshall C. Lefferts.
A leather label, designed by Mr. French, showing masks of
comedy and tragedy, and fool's bauble.
Two sizes : one inch and one and three eighths inches high.
293 Frederick Judson Holden Sutton 1903
Design by Mr. French. Engraved by F. O. Coombs.
294 Martha Elizabeth Brainerd 1905
Design by Mr. French. Engraved by F. O. Coombs.
295 Gertrude M. Baillie 1906
Design by Mr. French. Engraved by A. N. Macdonald.
296 U-sepe-ars-so-ap 1893
A piece of burlesque heraldry, engraved by Mr. French in the
spirit of the old English book-plate engravers; his first
known copper engraving.
297 Timothy Jones, Esq"- 1893
A copy, with much variation, of the Samuel Vaughan Esqr
plate, engraved as a study of the Chippendale style.
a As above.
b Name partly erased, still traceable.
c Name quite obscured.
75
EDWIN DAVIS FRENCH
298 de Chaignon 1903
A reengraving of an old French book-plate.
299 Nihil sine labore, | Edwin Davis French | Designing and |
copper plate engraving. | Specialty of Ex-libris. | 204
West 46th St. | New York 1896
Though not a book-plate, this announcement of Mr. French's
specialty is recorded here where it may serve as a link be-
tween the two lists of his engravings.
^
76
MISCELLANEOUS DESIGNS AND
ENGRAVINGS
E. D.French I 217 West 13th St., N.Y 1893
Changed in 1894 to: —
E. D. French. | 204 W. 46th St. I New York
A scroll-enclosed "Chippendale" design, not engraved, used
on envelopes and letter cards.
A stray leaf | from the ] correspondence | of | Washington
Irving I and [ Charles | Dickens | By | William Loring
Andrews | Printed at the De Vinne Press | New York,
1894 I and embellished | with engravings | on copper
and zinc 1894
Type title. The illustrations include two copper engravings
by Mr. French.
I Frontispiece: The Steamship "Brittania."
E.D. French sc.
Engraved from the painting by Clarkson Stanfield R. A.
Copies Nos. 1-15 of the edition contain proofs of the first
three following states :
a Unfinished proof.
b Proof before letters.
c With inscription as above.
d In subsequent copies the name of the ship is changed to
Britannia.
II Imprimatur of W. L. Andrews.
This is a small reproduction of Millet's The Sower, also used
by Mr. Andrews in others of his publications.
77
EDWIN DAVIS FRENCH
a Without motto.
EDFsc.
Three trial proofs, each deeper in shading than the one be-
fore it.
b With motto.
The plate appears in this state on the title-page of the present
book.
Mr. French engraved, without signature, a slightly smaller
copy of The Sower, with border of a single line.
3 The Trustees | of the | Metropolitan Museum of Art | re-
quest the I honor of your | presence at the | inaugura-
tion I ceremonies of j the new building, | on | Monday
afternoon | November fifth, 1894, | at two o'clock. |
Henry G. Marquand, President. | L. P. Di Cesnola,
Secretary. ] To 1894
a Before all letters ; much of decoration in outline.
b With The Trustees of the and To . . . engraved. No
other letters.
c Seal of the museum still wanting in centre circle; the in-
scription complete excepting the date.
d As described.
E.D.French inv. et so.
4 The President and Board of Trustees | of Union College
request the honour of the presence of |
at the Centennial Celebration | commemorative of the
founding of | the College, commencing Sunday June the
twenty-third, and ending | Thursday, June the twenty-
seventh, I eighteen hundred and ninety-five, at | Sche-
nectady, New- York 1895
E D French fee.
There exists an impression of this plate with the centre
obliterated, and the dexter portion, containing the vignette
of the "Blue Gate," lamp and book, elaborated by pencil and
pen into a book-plate for the Library of Union College.
78
DESIGNS AND ENGRAVINGS
5 The Society of Iconophiles of the City of New York.
1895-1897
Publication.
I February. 1895. St. Paul's Chapel. 1895.
E.D.French sc.
II April, 1895. Interior of St. Paul's Chapel. 1 (View of
Chancel)
E D French sc.
III May, 1895. Fraunces' Tavern.
E D French sc. iSgs
IV June, 1895. The Roger Morris House.
E D French sc.
V December, 1895. Hamilton Grange.
E D French sc 1895
VI February, 1896. St. Mark's Church.
E D French sc i8g6
VII May, 1896. City Hall.
E D French sc. i8g6.
VIII September, 1896. The Halls of Justice. | ("The
Tombs".)
E D French sc. i8g6.
IX November, 1896. National Academy of Design.
E D French sc. i8g6
X December, 1896. St. John's Chapel, Varick Street.
E D French sc. i8g6
XI January, 1897. The Murray Hill Distributing
Reservoir.
E D French sc. i8gy
XII March, 1897. Bowling Green.
E D French sc.
Each one of these twelve views of New York City was is-
sued in a wrapper giving number, date and title of the pub-
lication, and this statement : "loi impressions of this engrav-
ing have been taken and the plate destroyed. All impres-
sions are on Japan paper. 11 being artist's proofs before let-
ters."
Working proofs of some of these plates exist; 6 and 7 in
outline ; 5, 6, and 10 partly in outline ; S, 6, 8, 9 and 10 with-
out the seal of the Society, though practically finished.
79
EDWIN DAVIS FRENCH
Universitas et civitas 1895
E D French del. & sc.
Ornamental border with small view of Merton College, Ox-
ford.
a With large panel blank.
b Panel contains the business announcement of The Baldwin
and Gleason Company. This was sketched in by Mr.
French, and engraved by another's hand.
7 The Old Booksell | ers of New York | and other papers j
by I William Loring Andrews | New York: Anno Domini
one thou | sand eight hundred and ninety-five . 1895
Type title.
Contains the following designs and engravings by Mr.
French : —
I Frontispiece. An E. View of Trinity Church N. York.
Signature reads :
Engraved on Copper \by E D French, from the Orig-
inal in the New York Magazine 1790.
II Head-band on title-page, with miniature of Caxton.
EDF
III Title-page ornament; roman lamp in panel with scroll,
not signed.
IV Nassau Street, New- York.
E D French sc.
Shows the signs of Sabin and Thomas Bradburn.
V Head-band Part the First.
EDF
VI Initial / p. 3.
VII Initial W p. 29.
VIII Tail-piece p. 50.
IX Government House
Signature reads :
Engraved on copper by E D French from the Original
in the New York Magazine 1795.
80
DESIGNS AND ENGRAVINGS
X Head-band | Part the Second.
EDF
XI Initial p. 53.
XII Tail-piece p. 67.
XIII Head-band Part the Third
EDF
XIV Initial T p. 71.
Numbers I, IV, and IX are copper engravings, the others
are process reproductions. The engravings appear in two
states, one unfinished and unsigned, in the Imperial Japanese
Vellum edition of the book. Experimental prints of the cop-
pers were taken in varied colors.
8 Young Men's Christian Association of the City of New
York 1895
To the seal of the Association Mr. French added myrtle
sprays.
9 Beverly 1895
The seal of Beverly, Mass. It shows the figure of an armed
Puritan, with motto, and the inscription: Founded 1626.
Town 1668. City 1894.
10 Commemoration | of the | Fiftieth Anniversary | of | The
First Public Demonstration [ of Surgical Anaesthesia |
at the I Massachusetts General Hospital | Boston Oc-
tober 16th 1846. I The Honour of your Company is
requested | October 16th 1896 at ten o'clock. |
for the trustees for the staff 1896
E.D.F. sc.
Design by B. G. Goodhue. Similar in motive to the book-
plate of the hospital.
o Thirteen windows in basement of hospital.
b The middle basement window replaced by a door. Hospi-
tal engraved more lightly.
81
EDWIN DAVIS FRENCH
1 1 Admit I I to the | Massachusetts General Hospi-
tal I October 16th | 1896 1896
Design by B. G. Goodhue. Similar to the book-plate of the
hospital.
In first proofs the letter t in October is not crossed.
12 A catalogue of books pub | lished by Lamson Wolffe | and
Company Boston New | York and London 1896 . 1896
E D French sc.
This engraving, signature omitted, was enlarged by photo-
gravure. Sizes 5% and y'^A inches high.
The body of the plate is the same as that of book-plate
No. 85.
13 The Metropolitan Museum of Art. | Founded 1870. | This
is to certify that | is a Fellow in Per-
petuity of the Metropolitan | Museum of Art, and as
such is entitled to the | privileges which now are or
hereafter may be | connected with such fellowship, j
President. | Secretary. |
New York, 19— 1896
a Scroll work in outline. No lettering except word Excel-
sior.
b Scroll work shaded and seal of New York City added.
c- Inscription engraved in part ; portion from is a fellow to
such fellowship not yet engraved.
E.D.French fecit, 1896
d Completed plate.
e Same plate, with for Life instead of in Perpetuity.
f Same plate, with words an Honorary Fellow instead of
a Fellow in Perpetuity.
g Same plate. Fellowship inscription changed to : This is to
certify that | is a Patron of the Metropolitan
Museum of \ Art, and as such is entitled to the privileges \
which now are or hereafter may be connected \ with such
patronship.
82
DESIGNS AND ENGRAVINGS
14 Dartmouth College | The Senior Class requests the j
Honour of Your Presence | at their | Commencement
Exercises | from June 27th to June 30th | 1897 | June
14th 1897 1897
a Word its instead of their; no border.
b As described ; with border.
15 The Journey of | the Iconophiles | around New York in
search of | the historical and picturesque | (By W. L.
Andrews.) Printed at New York | in the year of our
Lord, eighteen | hundred and ninety-seven. . . 1897
Type title.
Frontispiece : A view of the Battery and Harbour of New
York, and the Ambuscade frigate, 1793. Engraved on cop-
per by E D French, from the Original in "Drayton's North-
ern and Eastern Tour."
Six copies on American hand-made paper have the frontis-
piece in two states, before letters and complete.
This book contains an account of the engravings done by
Mr. French for the Society of Iconophiles.
16 New Amsterdam | New Orange | New York | A chronolog-
ically arranged | account of engraved views | of the
city from the first | picture published in MDCLI | un-
til the year MDCCC | By j William Loring Andrews |
Published and for sale by j Dodd, Mead and Company,
New York | Anno Domini MDCCCXCVII . . . 1897
Type title.
The illustrations include the following engravings on copper
by Mr. French :
I Lines to the Reader.
ii-xiii Head-bands and initial letters, pp. XVH, XXYH,
3, 18; Head-band only, pp. 31, 57, 75, 97.
xiv-xx Tail-pieces, pp. XXHL XXXL 27, 54, 72, 93, 132.
The head-bands include small early views of New York City.
83
EDWIN DAVIS FRENCH
Proofs exist of the initials in their first state, on a single
copper.
The Lines to the Reader, the head-bands, and the tail-piece
on p. XXXI are signed E D F; the other engravings are
unsigned.
17 A trio I of I eighteenth century | French engravers | of |
portraits | in miniature | Ficquet ] Savart | Grateloup |
William Loring Andrews | New York MDCCCXCVIIII
1898
Decorative engraved title by Mr. French.
a Background engraved, decorated frame in outline.
h Frame complete, save for lower sinister oval, which is in
outline ; panels blank.
E D French sc.
c As described.
18 A bibliography | of [ "The Complete Angler" | of Izaak
Walton I and Charles Cotton | being a chronologically |
arranged list of the several | editions and reprints,
from I the first edition MDCLIII until | the year MCM. |
by I Arnold Wood. | Illustrated by 86 photographic | re-
productions of title pages | New York | Charles Scrib-
ner's Sons | MCM 1900
E D French sc.
Decorative engraved title by Mr. French.
a Three-fourths engraved, from dexter to sinister side.
h The date in Arabic numerals, igoo.
c Entirely engraved excepting the number 86. Date in
Roman numerals, MCM.
d Number 86 inserted.
19 The Society of Iconophiles of the | City of New York |
Founded MDCCCXCIV. | Amsterdam MDCLI. [New
84
DESIGNS AND ENGRAVINGS
York MDCCCC | Pro Urbis Amore | This is to certify
that is a | duly elected member of the
Society of Iconophiles | of the City of New York, and
as such is entitled to the ] privileges which now are or
hereafter may be connected | with such membership |
President | Secretary. |
New York 19— 1900
E D French sc igoo.
20 Paul Revere | and his | Engraving j By | William Loring
Andrews | New York | Charles Scribner's Sons | MCMI
1901
Decorative title '"'designed and engraved on copper by E.
Davis French in the style classed by book plate collectors
as Jacobean."
a Lettering and much of decoration in outline, Old South
Church finished.
h Plate complete, but unsigned.
c Signed.
E D French, igoi
21 New York Public Library. Astor, Lenox and Tilden
Foundations 1903
From the seal by V. D. Brenner.
This plate is used on the Library's form of acknowledg-
ment of gifts. An electrotype is used on the cover of the
Library's monthly "Bulletin" and elsewhere.
22 Andre's Journal. | An authentic record | of the movements
and engagements | of the British Army in America j
from June 1777 to November 1778 | as recorded from
day to day by [ Major John Andre ] Edited by Henry
85
EDWIN DAVIS FRENCH
Cabot Lodge | Issued by | the Bibliophile Society | for
members only | Boston ] MDCCCCIII 1903
E D French fee.
Description by Mr. French : "The design of this title-
page, a line engraving on copper, shows the portraits of Gen-
eral Washington and of Sir Henry Clinton, respectively com-
manding the American and English forces at the time
this Journal was written. Beneath depend the shields with
their armorial bearings. More nearly in the centre of the
plate appears a representation of the capture of Major Andre,
the Hudson and the Palisades in the distance at the right.
At the left are grouped the newly adopted stars and stripes,
the thirteen stars arranged in a circle, as they were displayed
until 1795, and the 'Pine Tree' flag, bearing the words
'Liberty Tree— An Appeal to Heaven.' Opposite appears
the British flag, with the fimbriated cross of Saint George
upon a white saltire,— the cross of Saint Andrew ; the white
cross of Saint Patrick of the modern flag being a later addi-
tion. Behind it is partly shown the royal standard, preten-
tiously quartering the lilies of France with the leopards of
England. The fleur-de-lis above the representation of the
capture alludes to the French origin of Andre's family, and
the cross of Saint George in the oval at the top of the de-
sign to his English allegiance. The remarque at the lower
left-hand corner is a representation of Andre's monument in
Westminster Abbey."
In the published work the title-page is given in two states,
on parchment, with the remarque, and on paper without it.
A few impressions exist with the remarque in a reddish-
brown ink.
a Without names under portraits.
Six first impressions on Japan paper.
h With names under portraits, and with remarque.
c Without remarque.
23 The New York Historical Society | This is to certify that |
I is a Patron of the New York Historical
Society and as | such is entitled to the privileges which
now are or | hereafter may be connected with such pat-
86
DESIGNS AND ENGRAVINGS
ronship. | President. | Re-
cording Secretary. | New York, | 19 — . 1904
E D French fecit 1904
At the top, on a flowing ribbon, is the name of the society,
and under it are the symbols of nation, state and city. To
the left of these is "The arrival of Henry Hudson on the
4th September, 1609," a copy of the engraving by A. B.
Durand on the old certificate of the Society; to the right, a
view of the Society's new building; below, a copy of Block's
view of "Novum Amsterodamum," 1650.
a Proof. "Patron" lightly scratched into spaces here indi-
cated : is a of the and connected with such
ship.
b Same. With is a of The, the t in the being
changed to a capital.
c As described.
d With Fellow, instead of Patron.
e With the following change in the lettering : is an Honorary
Member of The New York Historical Society \ and as
such is entitled to the privileges which now are or | here-
after may be connected with such membership.
24 Views | of | early New York | with illustrative sketches
Prepared for the | New York Chapter of the | Colonial
Order of the Acorn | New York | Privately printed |
MDMIV 1903, 1904
Type title. Extract from introduction — "The committee
having this work in charge was fortunate in securing the ser-
vices of Mr. Edwin Davis French, who has faithfully repro-
duced on copper all of the features of the original prints."
The plates are as follows, and, save the last, are unsigned.
I Fort Nieuw Amsterdam (New York) 1651.
II New York in 1671.
III New York in 1673.
IV New York in 1733.
V City of New York before the Revolutionary War.
VI New York in 1801.
Cypher EDF
Trial proofs exist of the 1651, 1671, 1673 and 1801 views.
87
EDWIN DAVIS FRENCH
25 American Badminton Series 1905
Unfinished engraved title, showing decorative border, with
nude figures of men and boys, representing various sports,
and without the title itself.
Design by F. W. Taylor.
E D French sc.
26 The letters of | Charles Lamb | in which many mutilated
words I and passages have been restored ] to their orig-
inal form ; with | letters never before published ] and
facsimiles of original MS | letters and poems | With
an introduction by | Henry H. Harper | Issued by |
The Bibliophile Society | for members only | Boston
MDCCCCV 1905
E D French fee.
The last decorative title engraved by Mr. French, with por-
trait of Lamb centered at top.
Remarque; Roast sucking pig on platter.
This title was used with the remarque in the announcement
of the book. Some proofs have no remarque.
27 Camp Wild Air | Upper St. Regis.
Picturesque vignette with pine needle decoration.
Letter-head designed for Mr. Whitelaw Reid.
EDFsc
28 Brook Farm Proctorsville Vt. | 189-
A letter-head having a scroll-surrounded engraving of the
country place of Mr. James Hale Bates.
29 Stationery Department | Charles Scribner's Sons.
An engraved heading of flowing scrolls, with circular panel
containing lamp and books.
88
DESIGNS AND ENGRAVINGS
30 Carnegie Institute of Washington 1902.
A seal, lettered in circle surrounding portrait. Engraved by
Mr. French, but used only in photo-electrotype.
31 A view of the Harvard Campus.
Engraved for the late Edwin B. Holden, but never published
before its inclusion in the present volume. Working proofs
exist v^rith trees in outline.
Without letters, unsigned.
89
INDEX OF BOOK-PLATES
Adams, Edward Dean, ipg, 240
Adams, Ernest Kempton, 207
Adams, Frances Amelia, 187
Adams, Ruth, 174
Adams, Walter B., 208
Adriance Mem'l Library, 195
Alexander, Amy B., 170
Alexander, Charles B., 44
Allen, Charles Dexter, 141
American Institute of Electrical
Engineers, 240
Andrews, Wm. Loring, 11, "j^i, 291
Armour, George Allison, 11 1
Armstrong, Charles D., 211
Arnold, Bion J., Gift of, 240
Authors Club, 98
Avery, Ellen Walters, In Memo-
riam, 10
Baillie, Gertrude M., 295
Baillie, W. E., 17
Bakewell, Allan C, 142
Bakewell, Alice C, 43
Baldwin, Sarah Rodman, 190
Balken, Edward Duff, 203, 220
Bar, Ass'n of the, 67, 118, 119
Barger, Samuel F., 53
Barnes, John Sanford, 180
Bates, James Hale, 36
Bell Telephone Co., Gift of, 240
Belknap, Helen Runyon, 96
Bernheim, A. C, 42
Bernheim, Henry C, 242
Bernheim, Julius C. and Emily
S., 276
Bierstadt, Edward Hale, 16
Biltmoris, 60, 69
Bishop, Natala Washburne, 200
Bixby, Emma Stewart, 274
Bixby, W. K., 275
Black, Henry V. D., 271
Blackwell, Henry, 20, 147, 150
Bliss, Caroline Seagrave, 231
Bliss, Catherine A., 87
Boas, Emil Leopold, 139
Borden, M. C. D., 175, 176
Borland, Harriet Blair, 80
Bradshaw, Sidney Ernest, 133
Brainerd, Eveline Warner, 96
Brainerd, Helen Elvira, I, 4
Brainerd, Ira H., 212
Brainerd, Martha Elizabeth, 294
Brandegee, John E., Fund, 282
Brewer, William Augustus, 228
Brown, Georgette, 124
Buck, John H., 166
Bull, William Lanman, 65
Bullock, James Wilson, 171
Burke, Edward F., 104
Burnham, William Henry and
Katharine French, 213
Burrill. John E., Fund, 118
Byrd, Francis Otway, 288
Byrd, George H., 288
Byrd, Richard Evelyn, 288
Byrd, William, 288
91
EDWIN DAVIS FRENCH
Caldwell, Edward, Gift of, 240
Candidati, 96
Carnegie, Lucy Coleman, 91
Carnegie Fund, 240
Carter, James C, Gift of, 119
Cary, Katharine T., 257
Cercle Franqais, 223
de Chaignon, 298
Chamberlain, Elisabeth, 151, 167
Champaign Public Library, 59
Cheney, Alice S., 156
Chew, Beverly, 7, 47, 285
Child Memorial Library, 100
Church, E. D., 41
Cincinnati Law Library, Rufus
King Fund, 234
Clark, Charles E., 8, 9
Clark University, 232
Clarke, Charles L.. Gift of, 240
Clough, Micajah P., 51, 66
Colonial Dames of America, 18
Connecticut Society of Colonial
Wars, 193
Connell, William, 97
Cosmos Club, 273
Coutant, Richard B., 28
Cox, Jennings Stockton, 125
Crerar, John, Library, 83
Gushing (Armorial), 145
Gushing, Ex Libris Medicis, 115
Daly, Helen Hunt, 96
Dana, Charles L., 131
Davis. Cora Paschall, 279
Day, Elsie Lewis, 96
Deats, Hiram Edmund, 22
Denver Club, 84
De Vinne, Theo. L., 56
Digamma, 201
Dill, James B., 197
Dimock, George Edward, 244
Downes, Mary L. S., 260
Dows, Tracy, 70
Drexel, Lucy Wharton, 255
Duryee, George Van Wagenen
and Margaret Van Nest, 143
Edison, Thomas A., Gift of, 240
Ellsworth, James William, 46
Emmet, Thos. Addis, Collection
of, 88
Field Memorial Library, 194
Fisher, Lucius G., 265
Foot, Margaret H., 168
Foote, Charles B., 19
French, Edwin Davis, 3, 5, 289,
290, 299
French, Mary Brainerd, 2
Frick, Henry Clay, 284
Furman, Dorothy, 198
Gage, Homer, 214
Gage, Mabel Carleton, 185
Gale, Edward Courtland, 136
Giles, Ellen Rose, 96
Godfrey, Jonathan, 32
Goldsmith, Abraham, no
Goldsmith, James A., 121
Goodrich, J. King, 64
Goodwin, Elizabeth Sage, 233
Goodwin, Francis, 30
Goodwin, James J., 29, 45
Goodwin, Philip L., 221
Gould, George J.. 269
Gray, Adelle Webber, 89
Gray, John Chipman, 202
Greene, Francis Bunker, 252
Grolier Club, 21
Haber, Louis L, 38
Hagerstown, 206
Harbor Hill, 184
Harper, Henry H., 249
Hartshorne (Armorial), 183
Hartshorne, Mary Minturn, 106
Harvard University
Cercle Franqais, 223
92
INDEX OF BOOK-PLATES
Child Memorial, lOO
Digamma, 201
Harvard Union, 186
Hohenzollern Collection, 239
Societatis Signeti, 181
Harvey, George, 264
Havemeyer, Wm. Frederick, 55
Heckscher, John Gerard, 210
Herter, Christian A., T2
Hoe, Ruth Lancaster, 224
Hofifman, Eugene Augustus, 216
Hoffman, Samuel Verplanck, 248
Hohenzollern Collection, 239
Holbrook, John S., 267
Holden, Alice C, 25
Holden, Edith, 61
Holden, Edwin B., 23, 24
Holden, Edwin R., 26
Hooper, Nona Newlin, 209
Hopkins, Robert Emmet, 155
Horsford, Cornelia, 149
Hutchinson, Cary T., Gift of,
240
Hyde, James Hazen, Gift of, 186
James, Walter B., 164
Jackman, S. E. and L. H., 278
Johns Hopkins University, Row-
land Memorial, 227
Johnston, W. J., Gift of, 240
Jones, Timothy, 297
Jordan, Elizabeth, 272
Kahn, O. A., 90
Kalbfleisch, Charles C, 33
Keith, Nath'l S., Gift of, 240
Keyes, Helen, 96
King, Georgiana Goddard, 96
King, Rufus, Fund, 234
Kingsbury, Edith Davies, 94
Lambert, Samuel W., 113
Lamson, Edwin Ruthven, 85
Larner, John B., 173
Lawrence, Emily Hoe, 35
Lee, Georgia Medora, 253
Leeds, Louise Hartshorne, 140
Leeds, Warner Mifflin, 229
Leeds, William Bateman, 247
Lefferts, Marshall C, 15, 292
Lefferts, Mollie Cozine, 105
Leggett, Cora Artemesia, 6
Lemperly, Paul, 102, 153
Little, Arthur West, 172
Livermore, John R., 159, 280
Livermore, John Walton, 280
Long Island Historical Society,
Storrs Memorial, 192
Loveland, John W. and Lee Part-
ridge, 169
Lovett, Benjamin Barnes, 245
Lowenstein, L. B., 39
Lyman, Annie, 230
Mackay, Katharine, 148, 184
Macy, Valentine Everit, 68
McAlpin, Charles W., 225
McCarter, Robert H., 92
McGraw Publishing Co., Gift
of, 240
McKee, Thomas Jefferson, 49
McLaughlin, Edward Tompkins,
Memorial, T2
Mailloux, C. O., Gift of, 240
Mansergh, R. S., yj
Marshall, Frank Evans, 58
Marshall, Julian, 95
M edicts, Ex Libris, 115
Merriman, Roger Bigelow, 188
Messenger, Maria Gerard, 54, 86,
151
Metcalf, Esther Pierce, 281
Metropolitan Museum, 40
Moore, Louise Taylor Harts-
horne, 140
Morgan, A. J., 74
Mynderse, Wilhelmus, 217
93
EDWIN DAVIS FRENCH
N. Y. Electrical Society, Gift
of, 240
N. Y. Public Library, Emmet
Collection, 88
N. Y. Yacht Club, 163
Nimick, Florence Coleman, 128
Notman, John, 254
Odd Volumes, Club of, 62
Orchards, The, 151, 167
Osborn, Henry Fairfield, 243
Osborne, Thomas Mott and
Agnes Devens, 57
Oxford Club, 12
Palmer, Lowell Mason, 218, 219
Palmer, Lowell Melvin, 235
Phillips, William, 189
Players, The, 13
Plummer, Mary Emma, 81
Porter, Jr., Nathan T., 160
Prescott, Eva Snow Smith, 132
Princeton University, 108
Pyne, M. Taylor, 50, 107
Pyne, Percy Rivington, 63, 107
Pyne, R. Stockton, 204
Queen's University, 263
R J S, 162
Ranney, Henry Clay and Helen
Burgess, 103
Reid, Whitelaw, 14
Richards, Walter Davis, 191
Robinson, C. L. F., 158
Robinson, Mary Barber, 237
Rogers, William Beverley, 205
Rowe, Henry Sherburne, 34
Rowland, Henry A., Mem'l, 227
Sabin, Ruth Mary, 99
Salmon, Lucy Maynard, 165
Sampson, Florence de W., 109
Sayler, John R., 277
Scripps, James Edmund, 129
Sedgwick, Henry Renwick, 138
Sedgwick, Robert, ']^
Sheffield, K. C. S., 127, 238
Sherman, William Watts, 179
Sherwin, Henry A., 52, 82
Sherwood, Samuel Smith, 117
Simmons, Parke E., 270
Simon, Herman, 226, 236
Skinner, Mark, Library, loi
Slade, Mabel, 241
Smith, Henry A., 286
Smith, Mary Nixon, 266
Societatis Signeti, 181
Sovereign, 71, 79
Sprague, Mary Bryant, 250, 251
Stearns, John Lloyd, 93
Stevens, Harriette M., 259
Stickney, Edward Swan, 134
Stratton, A. Dwight, 112
Sutton, Frederick J. H., 293
Sweetser, Kate Dickinson, 96
Symon, Martha A., 268
Taft, Theo. and Eleanor, 258
Talmage, John F., 135
Tatlock, William and Helen
Woodruff, 289
Taylor, Chas. H., Jr., 78
Thorne, K. C. S., 127
Treadwell Library, 152
Truesdell, Winfred P., 246
Twentieth Century Club, 122
U-scpe-ars-so-ap, 296
Union League Club, 157
University Club, 154
Utica Public Library, 282
Vail, Davis Righter, 262
Vail, Henry H., 48
Van Wagenen, Fred. W., 123
Varnum, James M., 196
Vassar Alumnag Hist. Assn., 116
Volapiik, 3, 290
94
INDEX OF BOOK-PLATES
Ward, Mary Minturn, io6
Warner, Beverley, 31
Washington County, 206
Weaver, W. D., Gift of, 240
Welsh, Gertrude Clarkson, 256
Wendell, Barrett, 114
Wetzler, Joseph, Gift of, 240
Wheeler, S. S., Gift of, 240
Whitin, Sarah Elizabeth, 178
Wilcox, Louise Collier, 96
Wiley, Sara King, 96
Willets, Howard, 75
Williams, E. P., 126
Williams, John Skelton, 146
Wilson, Margaret Chase, 96
Winslow, Wynne, 215
Winthrop, Henry Rogers, 120
Wodell, Silas, 161
Wood, Arnold, 130, 144
Wood, Ethel Hartshorne, 137, 261
Wood, W. C, 222
Woodbury, Charles H., 67
Woodbury, John P., 27
Woodward, S. Walter, 177
Worcester Art Museum, 182
Wright, J. Hood, 287
Yale Club, 283
Yale University, McLaughlin
Memorial, 72
INDEX OF MISCELLANEOUS DESIGNS
AND ENGRAVINGS
Acorn, Colonial Order of the, 24
American Badminton Series, 25
Andre's Journal, 22
Andrews, William Loring, En-
gravings for, 2, 7, 16, 17, 20
Bates, James Hale, 28
Beverly, Seal of, 9
Bibliophile Society, The, Titles
executed for, 22, 26
Britannia, The, 2
Carnegie Institute, 30
Complete Angler, The, 18
French, E. D., i
French Engravers, 17
Harvard Campus, 31
Iconophiles, Society of, 5, 15, 19
Lamb, Charles, Letters of, 26
Lamson Wolfife and Co., 12
Mass. General Hospital, 10, 11
Metropolitan Museum, 3, 13
New York City Views, 5, 7, 15,
16, 19, 24
N. Y. Historical Society, 23
N. Y. Public Library, 21
Reid, Whitelaw, 27
Revere, Paul, 20
Scribner's, Charles, Sons, 29
Sower, The, 2
Union College Centennial, 4
Universitas et civitas, 6
Wood, Arnold, Title executed
for, 18
Young Men's Christian Ass'n , 8
95
ivi2a'?G13
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APR 19 1975
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, (E45o5sl0)4<6 Berkeley
t'
