Cabinet des fées, ou, Collection choisie des contes des fées et autre contes merveilleux
A late eighteenth-century French fairy tale anthology compiled by Charles-Joseph Mayer and printed in Geneva in 1785 for general readers of marvellous tales. Its pictures are small black-and-white woodcut floral vignettes, with flowers, leaves and fruit cut in bold outline, plus one engraved framed scene of two figures beside classical columns with a French caption beneath. A designer could draw on the compact, self-contained botanical ornaments as decorative motifs and the stiff, formal line of the engraved scene for period framing.
