Home > Books



Ornament & Design


1001 Scrolls, Ornaments and Borders 
   Add to basketBasketAdd to favorites
Click here for a larger image.
Click here for a larger image.
 

Rawlings

Over 1000 attractive and usable designs printed on one side of a page only include Baroque, Rococo, Victorian, etc. Illustrations of corners, scrolls, cornucopia, chinoiserie, festoons, ribbons, much more. Designs are repeated with flopped copies so entire project can be completed. 60 plates.

Item #: BK503



1100 Designs & Motifs from Historic Sources 
   Add to basketBasketAdd to favorites
Click here for a larger image.
Click here for a larger image.
 

Leighton

Hundreds of beautifully rendered, copyright-free images painstakingly adapted from a host of design traditions: primitive tribal, Egyptian, Greek, Etruscan, Roman, Chinese, Japanese, Persian, Byzantine, French Renaissance and more. Also, decorative motifs derived from metalwork, heraldic ornament, floral vignettes, letters, other elements. Invaluable sourcebook for artists, craftworkers and decorative arts enthusiasts.

128 pages, 9 x 12 (Paperback)

Item #: BK495



2,286 Traditional Stencil Designs 
   Add to basketBasketAdd to favorites
Click here for a larger image.
Click here for a larger image.
 

Roessing

Masterfully executed designs in reproductions of two rare catalogs: ornamental borders, corners and frames with intricate floral and foliated patterns, architectural ornaments and design elements, religious symbols and figures, animals, mosaics, landscapes, much more. Invaluable to artists and craftspeople working with textiles, wallpaper and other decorative items. A unabridged republication of two catalogs (ca. 1918 and ca. 1920) of "Excelsior" fresco-stencils, originally published by H. Roessing, Chicago.

128 pages, 9 x 12 (Paperback)

Item #: BK505



2001 Decorative Cuts and Ornaments 
   Add to basketBasketAdd to favorites
Click here for a larger image.
Click here for a larger image.
 

Grafton

Authentic 19th- and 20th-century graphics: human and animal figures, music and dance, floral's, geometric's, much more. This splendid collection brings together in one beautifully produced yet modestly priced volume over two thousand copyright-free decorative cuts and ornaments selected from rare copies of 19th- and 20th-century periodicals such as The Century Magazine, Harper's Magazine, The Studio and The Inland Printer. The designs range over many moods, styles and subjects,from general decorative motifs (flowers, fruit, architectural elements) human and animal figures and illustrations of food and drink, music and dance, sports and recreation to Christmas themes, astrological signs and more! Meticulously rendered and printed and will add sparkle to advertisements, invitations, menus, letterheads and almost any graphics project.

96 pages, 8-3/8 x 11 (Paperback)

Item #: BK487



3,000 Decorative Patterns of the Ancient World 
   Add to basketBasketAdd to favorites
Click here for a larger image.
Click here for a larger image.
 

Petrie

Contains over eighty-eighty plates with 3,000 elements from ancient Europe and Asia, supplying artists and craftsmen with a wide source of design ideas from many different historic traditions such as fantastic and mythical animals, florals, rosettes, religious and secular symbols. Arabesques from ancient Rome and China, animal and plant forms from Rhodes, heroic symbols from Egyptian pyramids and interlacing designs from Lindisfarne. Grouped according to motifs, this book contains realistic-symbolic ornaments. Petrie shows the earliest know appearance of each design in history (noting place and time!), then traces its many transformations up to 1000 A.D.

106 pages, 8-1/2 x 11-1/4 (Paperback)

Item #: BK500



700 Victorian Ornamental Designs 
   Add to basketBasketAdd to favorites
Click here for a larger image.
Click here for a larger image.
 

Knight

This is a great sourcebook for decoupage. From intricate running designs to entire one-page scenes, it has the gamut of Victorian style drawings. For the price, you could buy a couple and cut the pages and make a great decoupaged piece of furniture. This lavish collection of copyright-free engravings by the celebrated 19th-century artist F. Knight-reproduced directly from a rare original edition-contains elaborate wall murals with trompe-l'oeil effects; scenes of hunters, flanked by mythological figures; idealized damsels in rustic settings; and numerous other florid motifs. Designs both floral (leaves, running vines, and blossoms) and animal (realistic and grotesque) appear in a variety of sizes and styles. 700 black-and-white illustrations.

128 pages, 8-3/8 x 11-1/4 (Paperback)

Item #: BK492



American Folk Art Designs & Motifs for Artists & Craftspeople 
   Add to basketBasketAdd to favorites
Click here for a larger image.
Click here for a larger image.
 

D'Addetta

This distinctive collection offers over 300 copyright-free traditional folk art motifs that are ready to use for almost any graphic and craft project. You'll find such flowers as tulips and daisies, delicate garlands, and other floral arrangements, fruit, trees, border designs, striking geometrics, human figures, animals including a unicorn, cat and deer, numerous birds-eagles, peacock, rooster - and many other charming illustrations, spanning two centuries of American folk art from 1710 to 1910. These crisply rendered motifs are easy to reproduce for textile and furniture design, advertisements, calendars, menus, invitations and other graphics, decoupage, wall hangings, quilts, embroidery, . . . almost anything that could benefit from a touch of genuine Americana. Artists, illustrators, designers and craft enthusiasts will want to have this versatile collection on hand as an inexpensive and ready source of designs with authentic early American flavor.

8-3/8 x 11-1/4

Item #: BK651



Art Nouveau Style, The 
   Add to basketBasketAdd to favorites
Click here for a larger image.
Click here for a larger image.
 

Waddell

One of the largest pictorial surveys available contains rare illustrations of jewelry, metalwork, glass ceramics, textiles, architecture, furniture and other objects.  579 photographs display jewelry by Lalique, Mucha-designed watch, stained glass by Gaudin, interiors by Hohlwein, plus pendants, iron doors, reliefs, flatware, etc.

288 pages, 8-3/8 x 11-1/4 (Paperback)

Item #: BK510



Art Nouveau Typographic Ornaments 
   Add to basketBasketAdd to favorites
Click here for a larger image.
Click here for a larger image.
 

Solo

A fabulous resource for black and white ornaments.  Over 800 Art-Nouveau florals, swirls, women, animals, borders, scrolls, wreaths, spots and dingbats, copyright-free.

100 pages, 8-3/8 x 11 (Paperback)

Item #: BK668



Art Nouveau: An Anthology of Design and Illustration from the Studio 
   Add to basketBasketAdd to favorites
Click here for a larger image.
Click here for a larger image.
 

Gillon

This is a great book, covering a broad range of Art Nouveau styles and designers.  The Studio magazine was the foremost source of Art Nouveau in England at the turn of the century and featured illustrations by such artists as Beardsley, Crane, Bradley, and others.  Here are 199 of the best graphic art specimens including:  posters, cards, borders, frames, and much more.

91 pages (Paperback)

Item #: BK481



Authentic Art Deco Jewelry Designs 
   Add to basketBasketAdd to favorites
Click here for a larger image.
Click here for a larger image.
 

Deboni & Menten

Meticulous reproduction of rare portfolio (1925-30) contains over 700 dazzling designs and motifs for buckles, clips, mirrors, pendants, cigarette cases, rings, chains, necklaces, watchbands, brooches, studs and charms.  Invaluable, copyright-free source of authentic Art Deco designs for artists, jewelers and period specialists.

80 pages, 8-3/8 x 11-1/4 (Paperback)

Item #: BK408



Baroque Ornament & Design 
   Add to basketBasketAdd to favorites
Click here for a larger image.
Click here for a larger image.
 

Stella

Copyright-free architectual ornaments, decorative motifs and border elements, engraved after drawings by 17th-century French artist.  46 illus.

46 pages, 8-1/4 x 11 (Paperback)

Item #: BK598



Decorative Ornaments and Alphabets of the Renaissance 
   Add to basketBasketAdd to favorites
Click here for a larger image.
Click here for a larger image.
 

Johnson

Over 1,000 examples of the finest typographical ornamentation designed by Renaissance craftsment, including a glorious assortment of alphabets, initials, decorative ornaments, vignettes, dingbats, headbands, borders, frames, bindings and printers' marks.  1020 illustrations.  Introduction.  Historical notes.

208 pages (Paperback)

Item #: BK490



Early Medieval Designs from Britain 
   Add to basketBasketAdd to favorites
Click here for a larger image.
Click here for a larger image.
 

Wilson

Early Medieval Designs covers the first thousand years between 400 and 1300 AD.  Ths patterns and designs are arranged thematically, bringing together the most important groups of patterns such as interlace, spirals and scrolls, and the major motifs - animals, birds, people and plants.  The illustrations are line drawings of patterns and designs, which decorate art and artifacts in the British Museum.  350 B/W designs.

128 pages, 8-3/8 x 11 (Paperback)

Item #: BK512



Handbook of Ornament 
   Add to basketBasketAdd to favorites
Click here for a larger image.
Click here for a larger image.
 

Meyer

Reproduces nearly three thousand geometric and natural motifs used to decorate jewelry, furniture, manuscripts, vases and other articles from the rise of Greek civilzation to the Victorian era.

548 pages, 5-3/8 x 8 (Paperback)

Item #: BK498



Medieval Designs 
   Add to basketBasketAdd to favorites
Click here for a larger image.
Click here for a larger image.
 

Mirow

Gothic ornaments, manuscript borders, and heraldic motifs are but a few of the illustrations in this book.  From authetntic sources, he includes brass rubbings, tapestry patterns, frescoes, and illuminated manuscripts.  Over 400 designs.

225 illustrations

Item #: BK499



Medieval Life Illustrations 
   Add to basketBasketAdd to favorites
Click here for a larger image.
Click here for a larger image.
 

Grafton

For those of us who can't draw, this is a really useful resource for adding visual appeal to newsletters, web pages, flyers, etc.  Except for a few color pages in the middle (that look very Vicorian), all the art is black and white line drawings that look like they were mostly taken from woodcuts, or possibly engravings, from between 1400 and 1600.  Some of them may be re-drawings of color originals, but the format they are in now makes them especially useful for simple projects whose budgets do not run to color copying.  Almost every subject of everyday life is covered:  fishing, cooking, death, tourneys, hunting, teaching, selling goods, sex, farming, playing music, building, cintage ships and medicine.  Naturally, the drawings are copyright-free and made for reproduction.

136 pages, 8-3/8 x 11-1/4 (Paperback)

Item #: BK486



Medieval Ornament 
   Add to basketBasketAdd to favorites
Click here for a larger image.
Click here for a larger image.
 

Heideloff

Pictorial archive or precisely detailed engravings of architectural elements-doors, windows, moldings, statuary, decorative stonework, columns, pedestals, rosettes and more-mostly from German Gothic churches, reprinted from a rare original 19th-century German volume, with new English translations.

208 pages, 8 x 12 (Paperback)

Item #: BK509



Old English Cuts & Illustrations for Artists & Craftspeople 
   Add to basketBasketAdd to favorites
Click here for a larger image.
Click here for a larger image.
 

Limited stock sale! 40% off.

Bowles & Carver

163 pages, 8-1/8 x 11 (Paperback)

Popular 18th century engravings:  folk humor, chapbook stories, nursery rhymes, oddities, costumes, stage situations, puzzles and more.

Item #: BK476



Old English Tile Designs 
   Add to basketBasketAdd to favorites
Click here for a larger image.
Click here for a larger image.
 

Grafton

128 pages, 8-3/8 x 11 (Paperback)

Over 150 engravings of original ceramic paving tiles from medieval cathedrals and monasteries-geometrics, mosaics.  Gothic and Romanesque themes, rich medieval imagery.  Sharp, copyright-free designs lend themselves to ceramics, serigraphy, photo silkscreen and batik, leather tooling, wood burning, enameling, marquetry and more.  161 black and white illustrations.

Item #: BK488



Ornamental Borders, Scrolls and Cartouches 
   Add to basketBasketAdd to favorites
Click here for a larger image.
Click here for a larger image.
 

Syracuse Ornamental Co.

128 pages (Paperback)

Hundreds of beautiful copyright-free line illustrations of intricately carved furniture trimmings.  Delicate floral wreaths, scrolls and more.

Item #: BK508



Ornamental Designs from Architectural Sheet Metal 
   Add to basketBasketAdd to favorites
Click here for a larger image.
Click here for a larger image.
 

Broschart and Braun

78 pages, (Paperback)

A must for architectural historians, restoration specialists and vintage home enthusiasts.  Over 1000 late Victorian-era designs, superbly drawn or photographed, including egg and dart enrichments; bead, flute and ogee enrichments; drapery and drop ornaments; urns, vases and wreaths; eagles, lion heads and gargoyles; rosettes, ribbons, garlands and festoons; sunbursts, weather vanes and much, much more.  1095 illustrations.

Item #: BK475



Ornamental French Hardware Designs 
   Add to basketBasketAdd to favorites
Click here for a larger image.
Click here for a larger image.
 

Grafton

128 pages, 9 x 12 (Paperback)

Reprinted from a rare 19th-century catalog.  Over 800 authentic examples of period hardware marketed by a Parisian firm specializing in metalwork for buildings.  Includes doorknobs, doorknockers, hooks, moldings, fireplace panels, staircase pilasters and more.  Plus rosettes, foliates and other types of ornament in repousse and hammered sheet metal.  All copyright-free.

Item #: BK482



Pugin's Gothic Ornament 
   Add to basketBasketAdd to favorites
Click here for a larger image.
Click here for a larger image.
 

Pugin

112 pages, 8-3/8 x 11-1/4 (Paperback)

This classic sourcebook of decorative motifs contains 100 plates of copyright-free Gothic designs, meticulously reproduced from rare 19th-century engravings.  Many are floral and foliate designs rendered from panels, capitals, borders, brackets, friezes, grotesques and other decorative elements from such architectural landmarks as New College Chapel at Oxford, Rouen Cathedral, Winchester Cathedral, Kenilworth Castle, Eltham Palance and the tomb of the Earl of Warwick.

Item #: BK502



Silhouette Designs for Artists and Craftspeople 
   Add to basketBasketAdd to favorites
Click here for a larger image.
Click here for a larger image.
 

Prosperoso

48 pages, 8-1/4 x 11 (Paperback)

153 black and white copyright-free art in bold and eye-catching motifs and designs in varied sizes.  Commercial artists and craftsman will have an abundance to choose from!  Rich detailed portraits of lovely ladies wearing elaborate headdresses, graceful images of wood sprites, ships in full sail and more.  Cleanly printed on high-quality paper for easy reproduction.  Ideal for embellishing menus, stationery and decoupage projects.

Item #: BK501



Silhouettes 
   Add to basketBasketAdd to favorites
Click here for a larger image.
Click here for a larger image.
 

Grafton

138 pages, 8-3/8 x 11 (Paperback)

One of the largest selections of silhouettes presently available.  Over 600 silhouettes from the 18th to 20th centuries include:  profiles of full figures of men and wome, children alone and in groups, scenes, birds and animals, trees, flowers, ships and alphabet.  Dozens of uses for stationery, menus, cards, sport illustrations, needlework, etc.

Item #: BK485



Styles of Ornament, The 
   Add to basketBasketAdd to favorites
Click here for a larger image.
Click here for a larger image.
 

Speitz

Largest collection of decorated artifacts, all in line; prehistoric, Egyptian, Islamic, Baroque, Victorian, other areas, times.  Over three thousand drawings illustrate the ornamented styles that have been produced throughout the world since prehistoric times.

647 pages, 5-5/8 x 8-3/8 (Paperback)

Item #: BK507



Symbols, Signs & Signets 
   Add to basketBasketAdd to favorites
Click here for a larger image.
Click here for a larger image.
 

Lehner

220 pages, 8-1/8 x 11 (Paperback)

1,355 signs, seals, symbols:  Babylonia, Egypt, Greece, Rome; Germanic, Byzantine, Renaissance, Aztec, Hindu, Islamic, Chinese, Japanese, others.  Astrological, alchemical, magical, early Christian, masonic, heraldic, crests, goldsmiths' marks, watermarks, all reproduced from authentic sources.   Reference, decorative and advertising art.

Item #: BK494



Treasury of Art Nouveau Design and Ornament 
   Add to basketBasketAdd to favorites
Click here for a larger image.
Click here for a larger image.
 

Grafton

577 copyright-free, authentic Art Nouveau designs specially selected for artists and designers.  Ranging in size from full-page illustrations to borders, headpieces, tailpieces, and initals; all clearly reproduced in black-and-white line.  Designs include:  florals, landscapes, figures, etc. from artists such as Klimt, Bradley, Auriol, Larcombe, and many more.

144 pages, 8-3/8 x 11-1/4 (Paperback)

Item #: BK483



Treasury of Fantastic and Mythological Creatures 
   Add to basketBasketAdd to favorites
Click here for a larger image.
Click here for a larger image.
 

Huber

Vast compilation of copyright-free images from many cultures and eras-from prehistoric rock paintings to Max Ernst, from the masks of black Africa to the gargoyles of Notre Dame.

154 pages, 9-3/8 x 12-1/4 (Paperback)

Item #: BK489



Treasury of Flower Designs 
   Add to basketBasketAdd to favorites
Click here for a larger image.
Click here for a larger image.
 

Gaber

100 garden favorites rendered in black-and-white line illustrations will suggest numerous design and artistic uses to artists, designers, craftsmen, and needle workers.  Amaryllis, anemone, begonia, cinquefoil, peony, snapdragon flow and weave, many forming borders and frames.  All drawings are copyright-free.

80 pages, 8-3/8 x 11-1/4 (Paperback)

Item #: BK480




Blacksmithing