Fore-edge paintings are scenes, portraits, or designs that are painted onto the edge of a book. Although some of these paintings are visible when the book is closed, often these paintings are covered over by gilded edges, so that the paintings only become visible when you fan the pages in the manner illustrated above.
Watercolor fore-edge painting of Edmund Burke and his estate. Painted mid-20th century by Helen Riviere Haywood, a British illustrator.
Burke, Edmund. Reflections on the Revolution in France. London: J. Dodsley, 1790. Probably bound by Staggemeier & Welcher.
Collection of CCAD Packard Library.
This PDF shows the binding, the title pages, and materials that we found inside the book.
Edmund Burke (born 1729 - died 1797) was an Irish-born British statesman, parliamentary orator, and political thinker prominent in public life from 1765 to about 1795. He wrote in opposition to the French Revolution in Reflections on the Revolution in France (1790). He contributed to aesthetic theory with the book, A Philosophical Enquiry into the Origin of Our Ideas of the Sublime and Beautiful, which was published in 1757.
Source: https://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/85362/Edmund-Burke
Helen Riviere Haywood (1908-1995) was an English writer and illustrator of children's books. Haywood was also a practitioner of the art of fore-edge painting. She became acquainted with the art form through an uncle who was associated with the Bayntun-Riviere Bindery of Bath. She did several fore-edge and double fore-edge paintings on commission every year from the 1930s to the 1970s for Inman's Books, an antiquarian book dealer in New York City. Source: Wikipedia
See the article cited below for more information and examples of her work. The CCAD Library has this journal.
Connelly, William. "The Life and Work of Helen Haywood (1907-1995)." IBIS Journal 3 (2009): 98-143.
We think we found the source images Helen R. Haywood used to paint her fore-edge painting:
View of the mansion of the Gregories Estate (also called Butler's Court) near Beaconsfield in Buckinghamshire. Watercolor by Ravenhill, 1792 British Library.
This is the mansion house of politician Edmund Burke. The name 'Gregories' comes from the family who had briefly owned the estate from 1370-1391. It was later owned by Ralph Butler who gave it its alternative name of Butler's Court. Burke bought it in 1768 for £20,000. The previous occupants were the Waller family, but Edmund Waller in 1768 inherited Hall Barn and moved his home there. It was in the fashionable Palladian style, with a main block connected to two smaller side blocks with colonnades. After the death of Burke the house was sold and then leased to a school. It was destroyed by fire in 1813.
We think she modeled her painting on an engraving of Burke based on this portrait of Burke by Sir Joshua Reynolds:
Edmund Burke, 1774. by Sir Joshua Reynolds.
Scottish National Portrait Gallery, Edinburgh, Scotland.
There is a similar portrait of Burke by James Northcote, a former student of Reynolds:
Edmund Burke by James Northcote
Royal Albert Memorial Museum, Exeter, Devon, UK