Ex libris van Annie Voet

Elias Voet Junior created this "Ex libris van Annie Voet" as a bookplate for Annie Voet. The bookplate is in the tradition of visual markers that signify personal ownership. It marks a volume as belonging to a specific individual and signals the cultural importance of books to the owner. It also demonstrates the economic power to commission such personalized items. This bookplate creates meaning through visual codes such as the image of the bookshelf as well as Latin phrases, which would be most familiar to those with formal education and therefore those of a higher social class. Research resources that could help us understand this piece would be archival records regarding the Voet family, records of bookplate production in the Netherlands, and records of literacy and education levels in the Netherlands at the time.