[Unknown], Album of Elaborately and Artfully Arranged Crests and Monograms, 1880s

[Unknown]

Album of Elaborately and Artfully Arranged Crests and Monograms, 1880s

Album; watercolor, ink, graphite, and printed crests and monograms on 71 leaves

9 x 11 inches overall

$ 1,000.00

[Unknown], Album of Elaborately and Artfully Arranged Crests and Monograms, 1880s

A particularly-artful example of a 19th-century English crests and monograms album, with 69 pages replete with hundreds of printed emblems, dynamically-collaged around skilled watercolor drawings. One especially vibrant page has a drawing of a tree and a rock with numerous birds, animals, and people arranged around it. Other pages contain emblems framed by finely-drawn branches or aesthetic movement florals. On another page, there is a well-rendered skeleton in a coffin, with a monogram for a skull. The last few pages contain pencil sketches.

The hobby of crest collecting began in the UK in the mid-nineteenth century. After the advent of uniform penny postage in England, in 1840, letters folded and sealed with wax were replaced by letters mailed in envelopes. The family crest or coat-of-arms which was once within the wax seal now appeared on envelope stamps or on top of stationary. Shortly thereafter, collecting these emblems became a popular trend, with “crest and monogram” albums appearing around 1860.

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