Bookplates, often inscribed with the phrase ex libris, are miniature works of art created to mark ownership of a private library. Long before the modern signed first edition became a collecting category of its own, artists were engraving, etching and printing small, intimate works designed to live inside books. These plates combine authorship, identity and provenance in a single sheet of paper.
This section explores the art and history of bookplates, the printmaking techniques behind them, and their place within the wider culture of book collecting. For collectors, they offer an accessible way to acquire original and often signed works on paper while deepening an understanding of ownership history and the private library as a curated space.
There are occasions when a bookplate does more than mark ownership. It becomes part of the book’s story. Pasted inside a 1931 First American Edition of The Waves by Virginia Woolf, published by Harcourt, Brace and Company, is a striking Art Deco bookplate entitled ‘Creation’. Designed for a certain David Adams, it is the work …
