A few post back, I was talking about online sources of vintage images. A great thing about searching for these images is that when searching, you end up going off on all sorts of wonderful tangents and making new discoveries.

This weekend I had been researching historic, ornamental alphabets and was exploring the possibility of putting together a collection of old book plates to be included in my new eBay item – a vintage set of books on Lettering & Alphabets (check it out here).

Whilst searching on the British Museum site, I cam across some plates from something called the Fantastic Alphabet by a German engraver named Meister E. S. These were produced in the mid 15th century as part of a series of 23 sheets: check out letter R, N and M

I think these are amazing! There seems to be a recurring theme of dogs and other creature gnawing at the characters feet / coat tails – I seriously wonder what inspired him to produce these! Some quick research on Wiki reveals that “ Master E. S. (c. 1420 – c. 1468), (previously known as the Master of 1466) is an unidentified German engraver, goldsmith, and printmaker of the late Gothic period. He was the first major German artist of old master prints and was greatly copied and imitated. The name assigned to him by art historians, Master E. S., is derived from the monogram, E. S., which appears on eighteen of his prints (variants appear on others). The title, Master, is used for unidentified artists who operated independently. He was probably the first printmaker to place his initials on his work.”

Ilove the way he has tinted the eyes in red in the ‘M’ – just adds to the eccentricity and craziness of these wonderful prints! Back to my original point; this discovery sent me off an a tangent searching for other works of the Meister on the web which bore some fruitful results (check this site out). So; if you are working on a project, dont worry if you get distracted as you can often come up with some fantastic finds.