Figure 177
Luce’s Ornaments
From Luce’s Essai d’une Nouvelle Typographie, Paris, 1771
1771
His Essai d’une Nouvelle Typographie shows a superb collection of ornaments and borders made to accompany his types. These are designed with great skill from a decorative point of view, are wonderful in their variety, and yet harmonize with one another. No modern type-foundry has produced a more magnificent suit of appropriate and “printable” ornaments. They were made on all sorts of bodies, and were meant to take the place of engraved borders, which were then the fashion, but which were expensive, and, furthermore, involved two printings.