Ex libris van T. Hiltermann 1928

This is Lodewijk Schelfhout's "Ex libris van T. Hiltermann," made in 1918. It's a bookplate, a little print intended to be pasted into the front of a book to indicate ownership. I imagine Schelfhout hunched over his materials, carefully etching away at the metal plate, the image slowly emerging from the negative space. It’s a warm domestic scene, yet imbued with this strange sense of quiet. A fire burns softly under a mantelpiece decorated with foliage and a bird. A bookcase and a window sit on either side. You can imagine the fire crackling, a book open on the lap. This piece really speaks to the intimacy of reading, the way books become part of our interior lives and furnish our imagination. Schelfhout invites us to linger in this imagined space, and consider the quiet joys of life lived among books.