Ayres and dialogues, : for one, two, and three voyces
Ayres and dialogues is a 1653 London songbook for one, two and three voices, printed by T.H. for John Playford and set with lute accompaniment, by Henry Lawes (1596-1662). The pictures are decorative woodcut initial letters, an L and an I and a T, framed by strapwork, scrollwork and leafy foliage with hatched shading. A designer could take from them the dense, hand-cut ornament of seventeenth-century English printing, useful for historical display letters, borders and frames.
