House and Hearth

Alice Cordelia Morse|Dodd, Mead & Co.|Harriet Prescott Spofford

1891 · Beige cloth covered boards with light and dark brown and gold decoration · Drawings and Prints

A leading New York late nineteenth century book-cover designer, Morse studied at the Woman’s Art School of the Cooper Union, then under John La Farge before working for Louis C. Tiffany as a painter and designer of stained glass. In 1887 she began to concentrate on book-covers, fufilling eighty-three commissions for New York commercial publishers by 1905. Complementing the text, she chose imagery ranging from classical, to Renaissance, Celtic, Arabic, Gothic, Rococo, Arts and Crafts and Art Nouveau. For this woman's guidebook on home-making and house-keeping, Morse created an Art Nouveau image centered on a laurel wreath that signifies the accomplishments to which women aspired in the late nineteenth century. The cover is bound in straw-colored, diagonal-rib reversed cloth and the front cover is stamped with a full-cover design in brown, peach, and gold. The Museum's cover is a publisher's production case.

Artist

Alice Cordelia Morse|Dodd, Mead & Co.|Harriet Prescott Spofford

Date

1891

Medium

Beige cloth covered boards with light and dark brown and gold decoration

Department

Drawings and Prints

Credit line

Gift of Alice C. Morse, 1923, transferred from the Library