Marmion / Walter Scott, 1808. Double fore-edge paintings: Farmers tending sheep; people fishing.
The Colorado State University Libraries Rare Book collection includes 21 fore-edge paintings and 3 double fore-edge paintings. The painting is applied to the fore-edge of a book by fanning the pages, holding them in place with a device and using the tips of the pages as a canvas. After the painting has dried, the book is closed tight to apply gilt or marbling to the fore-edge thus concealing the painting. The fore-edge of the book must be fanned to reveal the hidden scene or decoration.
The inventor of the art of fore-edge painting is unknown. In the early history of the book, manuscripts were shelved horizontally due to their large size. These often had the title written on the fore-edge so that owners could easily identify the piece. Sometimes the fore-edge was decorated with a coat of arms or a floral design, sometimes the name of the owner was written on it. The earliest signed and dated fore-edge paintings are by Stephen and Thomas Lewis circa 1653. The art peaked in England, in the late eighteen century to early nineteen century with the Edwards family of Halifax. The Edwards family, William and his five sons, were booksellers and binders with bookstores in Halifax and London.
Books with fore-edge paintings often have a fine binding decorated with gilt, blind-tooling and marbled endpapers. (Sea Fishing, see sidebar for revealed whaling scene.)
Some fore-edge paintings are not hidden. This fore-edge has three scenes from the bible: Jonah and the Whale; Adam and Eve; Noah’s Ark. The book was printed in 1811 in Edinburgh. As is generally the case, the artist is unknown.
In addition to the single fore-edge painting style, there are panoramic, split and double fore-edge styles. The panoramic is a painting that includes all edges; the split style has two paintings, one above the other each taking up half the fore-edge; and the double fore-edge painting, the most rare, has two paintings, one when pages are fanned in one direction, and another when the pages are fanned in the opposite direction.
Generally it is the painting that gives the book its value unless the piece has other intrinsic qualities, for example, one of our pieces was printed by John Baskerville, one of England’s greatest type designers.
REFERENCES
Fore-edge Painting : a historical survey of the curious art in book decoration / Carl Jefferson Weber, 1966.
The Fore-edge Paintings of Stephen and Thomas Lewis / William Kellaway, Guildhall Miscellany no. 8, July 1957, pages 27-32.
Thousand and One Fore-edge Paintings / Carl Jefferson Weber, 1949.