Ornamental Borders, Scrolls and Cartouches in Historic Decorative Styles (Dover Pictorial Archive)

Very enthusiastic and satisfied over the book contents:What I liked:*Detailed and intricate drawings of palmettes and buds that are larger in scale, and sharply in focus*Wide variety of detailed patterns tat are fun to draw*In addition to palmettes, buds, and beads, also included a lot of patterns involving flowers and curves*Degree of intricacy of patterns also highly varies, so it's friendly (in terms of drawing) for going at your own pace (at least in my opinion)*In addition to curves, also includes circles, cartouches, shields, rosettes, and moreHighly recommend this for anyone interested in diving into intricate patterns, and to see how far one can go in terms of detail.

Without some of these borders I'd get lost for ideas after awhile - here are more than you can ever imagine using, and each one will line up so the border can be as long or short as you please, they even have corner elements show so you can 'turn the corner' without blowing it. From hard metal to wood, you'll find something here to please - and when used with other Dover Books, you can't go wrong! I do firearms engraving, but I've used them on belt buckles with exceptional results -- I bet wood engravers would find a good use for these Dover Books as well .

Useful

Nice, but extremely ornamental. Of course, that's what the title says.

Nice inspiration.

lots of reference images but they are poor quality prints. good for silhouettes but detail is poor

I appreciate the work that went into this design book, however, the 1,950 illustrations are comprised of the same design in an array of sizes.There are plenty of tile, rosette, scrolls and borders designs to choose from and is a great book for inspiration.Even though I rated it two stars, I still would consider purchasing this book.

The book arived 24hrs + ahead of deadline. Lite weight, comfortable to hold, about A4 size, no text, huge amount of black white designs . Work with Artwork ? Buy it . Because it arrived earlier than expected and he didn't scan it, on my review you might not see the "Amazon verified buyer" thing, however I totaly recommend it .

We are a master wood carving company and use this book so much we call it "our bible" for classical decoration. We often give as a gift to clients. We are big fans of the Dover Publications and use several of their books for reference plates. Any carver or fine arts person should be able to work off these if a designer or client were to use them.

Not a bad little book but printing could be sharper.

A very useful and helpful book on borders.

Arrived in immaculate order. Great useful, (to me) book