Tailpiece (page 2) from The Fables of Aesop
Thomas Bewick
British, 1753–1828
1818
A small wood engraving tailpiece by Thomas Bewick that finishes a page of Aesop’s Fables with a miniature, narrative vignette meant to ornament and comment on the text.
Your eye is drawn to the lower edge where a crisply hatched riverside scene — tiny boats, clustered figures, and a low, sketched sky — reads like a little stage of human activity, its fine lines and varied textures startlingly alive at that small scale.
Bewick helped redefine wood engraving for the modern illustrated book, combining precise technique and close natural observation to make pictorial vignettes an integral, influential part of mass-produced texts.
Medium
Wood engraving from an illustrated book with 323 wood engravings and one etching and engraving
Dimensions
composition (irreg.): 1 1/8 × 2 13/16" (2.8 × 7.2 cm); page (irreg.): 8 1/4 × 5 5/16" (21 × 13.5 cm)
Classification
Department
Credit
The Louis E. Stern Collection
Accession
680.1964.9
Palette
Art Terms
Exhibitions
