Observations diverses, sur la sterilité, perte de fruict, foecondité, accouchements, et maladies des femmes, et enfants nouveaux naiz
A 1617 Paris midwifery treatise by Louise Bourgeois, midwife to the French court, written in French for practising midwives and women. The pictures are decorative woodcut initials, a large M in several versions and a smaller A, framed by foliage and scrollwork. A designer could take from them the dense, hand-cut leafy borders and ornamental letterforms typical of early seventeenth-century printing.
