Headpiece (page 139) from The Fables of Aesop
Thomas Bewick
British, 1753–1828
1818
A small wood-engraved headpiece by Thomas Bewick that illustrates the fable “Jupiter and the Camel,” intended to condense the story into a single pictorial moment to accompany the text.
You’re struck by the tiny oval vignette’s fine cross-hatching and crisp black-and-white tones: a shaggy camel crouches in the foreground while a godlike figure hovers in the clouds above, framed by a spare landscape that compresses a moral tale into an intimate image.
Bewick’s precise, text-integrated wood engravings helped redefine book illustration in the early 19th century, bringing naturalistic detail and narrative compression to mass-produced literature and influencing generations of illustrators.
Medium
Wood engraving from an illustrated book with 323 wood engravings and one etching and engraving
Dimensions
composition: 2 5/16 × 3 3/16" (5.8 × 8.1 cm); page (irreg.): 8 1/4 × 5 5/16" (21 × 13.5 cm)
Classification
Department
Credit
The Louis E. Stern Collection
Accession
680.1964.129
Palette
Exhibitions
