Medieval Hunting Frame & Border

I love when I find a great frontispiece frame where the publisher didn’t print part of the title and other information over the wonderful illustration. This one is from a book about French stories published in 1911. The 1911 publication was an English translation of an earlier work. It would seem the illustrations may have come from the original, but, I haven’t done the research to confirm that. Why is that important? Under American copyright, the illustrations from this book are in the public domain because it was published prior to 1923. Elsewhere in the world, particularly where they follow the Berne Convention Standard, it may not be copyright free, unless these are the same illustrations from a work which is over 120 years old (probable) or has a documented illustrator who died over 70 years ago.

This frame reminds me of a medieval tapestry with various hunting scenes with hounds. The lines are fairly crisp and clear and would make it fairly easy to use this image as is or with a little coloring. With the decoration on the bottom of the frame, the silhouette of the piece looks a bit like an armoire or cabinet.

The scan was done with a fairly nice resolution so there’s a larger image available than fits in this post. Just click on the medieval hunting frame below to access and download the larger version.