Headpiece (page 105) from The Fables of Aesop
Thomas Bewick
British, 1753–1828
1818
A small wood-engraved headpiece by Thomas Bewick illustrating “The Fox and the Ass,” made to give readers a vivid, moralizing picture to accompany the fable.
In a finely hatched oval vignette a donkey draped in a lion’s skin confronts a fox amid shadowed trees, the tiny scale and crisp black-and-white lines making the animals and the textured foliage feel remarkably immediate.
Bewick’s wood engravings transformed early-19th-century book illustration by pairing minute naturalistic detail with economical printing, setting a new standard for how stories and moral lessons were visually communicated to a broad reading public.
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
680.1964.97
Palette
Exhibitions
