La Vie de monsieur Des-Cartes
A 1691 Paris biography of philosopher René Descartes by Adrien Baillet, published by D. Horthemels, with the plain decorative tailpieces and headpieces typical of its printing. The four pictures are black-line woodcut ornaments: a scrolled panel with a central vase motif, a flower basket framed by acanthus scrolls, a shell set within curling volutes, and a flower-filled urn. A designer could borrow their acanthus scrolls, shell cartouches and bouquet vessels as seventeenth-century ornament for borders and frames.
