Art Library / Frames and Borders
Frames and Borders
The furniture of a printed page: cartouches, corners, rules, ribbons and the frames they build.
14 collections, 3,454 pieces in total. Pick a collection to see the art inside it.
Engraving
Masked cartouche plaque 02
From Franz Sales Meyer, Handbook of Ornament , scan page 494
View this pieceEngraving
Rococo shell scroll
From Thomas Bewick, A General History of Quadrupeds , scan page 452
View this pieceEngraving
Saltpetre label 02
From Harris & Company, New Sample Book of Cut and Gummed Druggists' Labels , scan page 20
View this pieceBrowse the collections
Start with a subject or a set of historical plates.
Borders & Frames
Borders, frames, corner pieces and cartouches to run around a sign, tag or panel.
Patterns & Ornaments
Rosettes, knots, frets, scrolls and repeat patterns that stand on their own, from pattern books and needlework manuals.
Labels
Poison labels, prescription blanks, cologne and bitters labels, and the ornamental frames a chemist overprinted with a shop name.
Colour Borders
Chromolithograph border strips and running patterns, printed to frame a page in flat colour.
Ornament Plates
Chromolithograph borders, panels and illuminated ornament from Victorian pattern books.
Motifs and moods
Follow a more specific object, detail or feeling.
Cartouches
Baroque and rococo cartouche frames, the shaped panel an engraver put a title or a coat of arms inside.
Corner Ornaments
Single corners and spandrels, the pieces you assemble a frame from rather than a frame itself.
Medallions and Roundels
Round and oval fields: roundels, medallions and cameo surrounds, carved, cast and engraved.
Laurels and Wreaths
Laurel crowns, garlands and wreath surrounds, the classical way to put a border round a name.
Banners and Ribbons
Ribbon scrolls and banners with a field left blank, for a motto, a name or a date.
Rules and Dividers
Type-foundry rules, headpieces and tailpieces: the horizontal furniture that breaks a page up.
Flourishes and Penwork
Swashes, swirls and foliate pen flourishes, the loose ornament that fills a corner of a page.
Acanthus and Scrollwork
The curling leaf that classical ornament is built out of, and the scrolls it runs into.
Frets and Key Patterns
Right-angled running patterns: the Greek key, the Chinese fret and the maze.
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