Illumination/Chromolithography

The power of the English currency has been, till of late, largely based on the national estimate of horses and of wine: so that a man might give any price to furnish choicely his stable, or his cellar; and receive public approval therefore; but if he gave the same sum to furnish his library, he was called mad, or a bibliomaniac. And although he might lose his fortune by his horses, and his health or life by his cellar, and rarely lost either by his books, he was yet never called a Hippo-maniac, nor Oino-maniac; but only Biblio-maniac, because the current worth of money was understood to be legitimately founded on cattle and wine, but not on literature. The prices lately given at sales for pictures and MSS indicate some tendency to change in the national character in this respect, so that the worth of our currency may even come in time to rest, in an acknowledged manner, somewhat on the state and keeping of the Bedford Missal, as well as on the health of Caractacus or Blink Bonnen - John Rusken

Illumination

Examples of German Decorative Illumination inside Humphrey's Origins and Process of the Art of Writing [...]

The term comes from the Latin for 'lit up' or 'enlightened'; referring to, for our purposes, the use of bright colours and gold to embellish initial letters (and sometimes depict complete scenes). The purpose of the extra artistic attention was to decoratively adorn the piece, as well as enhance the intended meaning. Often these decorated pieces were sold as gifts.

Chromolithography

Chromolithography inside Henry Noel Humphreys' Origins and Process of the Art of Writing [...]

Chromolithography is the chemical process of making multicoloured prints by applying an image to a stone or zinc plate with a grease-based crayon. Each colour must be separately drawn on, and applied to the surface individually; intricate colour combinations could require 20-25 stones on a single image. More or less the combining of colour with the practice of lithography, a printing technology that differed from earlier techniques wherein a plate is either engraved, etched, or stippled to score cavities to contain the printing ink, or in the case of woodblock printing or letterpress printing, wherein ink is applied to the raised surfaces of letters or images. to be confused with Chromo-xylography, which as we discussed in lecture is the combination of colour and woodcuts, not stone. This wiki page can help to solidify the distinction!

Gift books

As we discussed in class, the rising popularity of decorative books in the mid-19th century was significantly tied to the concept of books as gifts. The purchasers/recipients of these books were traditionally those financially able to participate in high end book trade, as the cost of design and production of ornamented pieces was higher than traditional printed books of the time. Henry Noel Humphreys is regarded as having made efforts to close this access gap; he aimed to bring the enjoyment of art and academia to a wider audience than the "wealthy intelligentsia."

Origins and Process of the Art of Writing [...]
Parables
Illuminated Books of the Middle Ages [...]