Lost and found

My husband, Mark, and I hunted for years for a box of books that we were certain had to be in the house. We looked high and low, that is, from the basement to the attic, and the rooms in between. I was desperate to find it, because it contained four of the 12 volumes in Andrew Lang's famed, fairy tale collection: Blue Fairy Book (1889), Red Fairy Book (1890), Green Fairy Book (1892) and Yellow Fairy Book (1894). I loved these books and was mystified by their disappearance.

Unfortunately, we found the box after a pipe burst in the basement. Seems it had been mislabeled. Gulp, by me. It broke my heart to discover that not only were my books damaged, but so were a dozen or so books that had belonged to Mark's mother when she was a child.

The fairy books didn't survive but we saved most of my late mother-in-law's books - and that's where the illustrations here come in. They are by Pauli Ebner, who I assumed was a man. Wrong. Pauli, I discovered, was a variation of Pauline or Paula. Ebner (1873-1949) is well-known to postcard collectors but wasn't on my radar even though a quick look through my collection this week turned up quite a few of her postcards (take a peek of four others via the New York Public Library's digital gallery).

The only way to describe her style is as sweet. It's soothing, winsome and oh-so-easy to imagine sharing with a child. I removed damaged areas and managed to save every color plate. Now, I'm at a loss as to whether I should frame them, sell them as is or use them in my collages - my usual dilemma.

  

Butterflies: 3

Isn't that calligraphic background spectacular? It's an original plate of a hand-drawn pen illustration from "Gaskell's Penman's Handbook" (1883) and there is a tiny butterfly in it toward the top right edge of the plate. Sections of other plates from "Golden Gems of Penmanship" (1884) make up the body and top layer of the large butterfly, and the handwork theme is carried over into the middle layer via the antique, hand-marbled endpapers. 

I liked the idea of combining the calligraphy with the printed lists, one of which is an almost tissue-thin page from the Holland "Butterfly Book" I've been mining.  The pages helped protect the color plates in the book, as well as identifying the butterflies. I used another one on April, where it became semi-transparent. 10.5" x 7.75" on archival mat board with ink, watercolor and specimen pins. In a cloth-covered, 11" x 8.5" shadowbox that is ready to hang.