Illuminated Ornaments, selected from Missals and Manuscripts of the Middle
Ages. By HENRY SHAW. No. 1.
The design of this work is unique, and its execution beautiful. The elaborate richness of decoration, and splendour of the combinations of colour and blazonry, which render illuminated missals so curious and valuable, afford many useful hints for embellishment both in colour- ing and design. A selection of the most curious and striking of these barbarous yet brilliant quaintnesses—Gothic Arabesques in style—will prove acceptable, not only to the admirer of illuminated missals, but to the numerous caterers to the taste of the present times in the various Species of ornamental decoration. The number before us contains one • or two specimens of singular delicacy and beauty, both in regard to colour and design ; and some, whose variegated richness is finely con- trasted by others in bold simple relief; of a dark colour on a light. ground. Judging from the first number, the execution of the work will be every way worthy of the subject. There is abundance of materials, from which a choice and varied selection may be made, which would possess general interest. We have not had an opportunity of forming an opinion of the mode in which the superior edition is got up, with blazonry and heightened effects by means of opaque colours ; but the beauty of the colouring, in the one befiwe us, gives us a favourable idea of the splendour of more exact imitations of the sumptuous originals.
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