Stenciled Book Edges

The tradition of fore-edge painting, or edge painting, describes all the activities related to embellishing the paper edges of a book. Dating back to tenth-century England, the practice reached the peak of its popularity in the second half of the seventeenth century but continued throughout the eighteenth century. At the time, the art of aging book edges was done by specialists, as the ornamentation was seen as a central part of the book's appearance. A painted-edge book stood out. It made ...