Forget-me-not

 Illustration

What good does illustration do in a prayer book?  The Bible, as it is currently printed, doesn't have illustrations.  The importance is the text.  Anything else just gets in the way of the word.  

However, in my Christian forget-me-not, the scripture is meant to be remembered.  As the months pass in the book, the flowers tell the story of the changing of the seasons.   It all ties together the forget-me-nots on the cover of the book and the overall meaning of the book.

There is no publishing date in this book, which means I can only guess as to how these illustrations were printed.  What I do know is the book was printed in Germany, the illustrations are on thicker paper and there is gold overlay on some of the illustrations. 

My educated guess is the illustrations were printed by the process of chromolithography.  Chromolithography is a way of making multi-colored prints.  Invented in the early 1800s, chromolithography was an easy way to get color to the masses.  

The Chicago Antiques Guide blog explains that in order to tell a chromolithograph from a color separation print, which is the "modern" process of printing, the dots are important. When magnified, the dots on a chromolithograph will resemble the stone the illustration is printed on, making the pattern irregular.

This close up of a cigar label from 1930 is a closely resembles the same dot pattern from the illustrations on my book.

Works Cited

Chicago Antiques. Chicago Antiques Blog. N.p., 16 Feb. 2012. Web. 11 Feb. 2014.