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Which kind of illustration should I take for my bookplate?

 

 

Typographic bookplate, 1931.

The simplest illustration could be a graphic composition with just the client's name. 
A nice example is the bookplate for the famous Czech writer and poet Buchlovan. The particular is that it is completely composed of loose typefaces and other typographic elements from the typesetter's type case. 
In spite of these very restricted means, the almost unknown Czech artist (or printer ?) A.Jero succeeded in creating a bookplate in the style of that time: the Art Deco style. 

An other example is a bookplate by a certain JG, dated 1872 (?).
The fingerprint, being an important identification means in a crime investigation, is used here as an illustration in a bookplate for a doctor of laws.
Furthermore the young lithographic technique, invented a few decades earlier around 1800, allowed to make the fingerprint directly on the prepared stone whereafter the text could be written on it.
'Utriusque juris doctor' is a Latin term which means 'doctor of both laws'.
It refers to a combined law degree, in both civil and canon law.

Early lithographic bookplate.

Bookplate for dentist
by R.Slabbinck.

An illustration telling something about the client's interests, his profession, his hobbies, an allusion to his name, etc., or a combination of this all, will probably be appreciated at most by the starting bookplate-lover.
The more an artist knows about his client, the more ideas and inspiration it can generate and the better his drawing will express the client's personality and respond to his wishes.
Therefore, an exploratory conversation with the artist can be very useful. 
But give him freedom of action. Don't impose him which objects he should draw at the left side and what at the right. This will rarely lead to a satisfying artistic result.

The picture on a bookplate can also be based on a certain theme.
The subject can really be anything, without limitation. 

For example it can be a general theme such as music, history, medicine, gastronomy, nature, philosophy, sporting, literature, mythology, religion, technique, ... you name it.

 

It can also be a very specific theme. 
Some of the most beloved subjects are 'Susanna and the Elders', 'Leda and the Swan', the Unicorn, 'Don Quixote and Sancho Panza', 'The Tower of Babel', wine, freemasonry, erotica, cats, horses, etc.
It is fascinating to see how different the style and the interpretation of the same theme by several artists can be.

'Leda and the Swan', Brazda.

'Leda and the Swan', Bekker.

 

Rhead (USA), bookplate
for bookseller Madigan.

Some collectors only collect bookplates with a specific theme or subject while others try to collect all the bookplates created by one single artist.

A few collectors even only collect bookplates made for one or more specific persons, for example for well known writers, politicians, physicians, etc, or they even try to collect the bookplates made for a well known (late) collector such as, for example, the Jewish Austrian pharmacist and magister Marko Birnholz (1885 - 1965).

Tilgner, bookplate for well known collector Marko Birnholz.

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