Scrapbook of Hand-Coloured Juvenile Woodcut Emblems

Jul 5, 2018



Books focused on the moral education of young people, particularly via the use of emblems, were all the rage in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth century (see for example The Blossoms of Morality and The Accidents of Youth). The pages of the unique book featured here, from the Special Collections department of the UCLA Library, have had pasted onto them a collection of cut out emblems featured in such juvenile literature. There are thirty eight woodcut emblems in total, some crudely hand-colored, and judging from the limited variety of designs, only sourced from one or two books. Subjects include "folly of drunkenness", "the danger of misspending time", and "upon a little girl's playing with a painted baby".