It was already a nice frame with space for text when I found it. But, the colors on this bit of unattributed cover art were a bit faded and uneven. A little editing, the addition of some color and now we have a dramatic, vintage red frame and text border.
I love how the artist played with light and dark tones by splitting the image on the diagonal – one side a solid, dark background; the other scattered dots on white. I left the central boxes as they were in the original drawing but if I were using this vintage red frame image, I would be tempted to straighten out the lines.
Big leaves feature heavily in the design along with a number of smaller floral elements. It’s red now but it wouldn’t be all that hard to change this vintage red frame into a frame of another color.
In case you’re curious, this drawing was one of only images included on or in a book about Daniel Boone that was published in 1884. The other drawing was a quite unflattering portrait of Boone and one I won’t be using. It would be my guess that the two pieces were drawn by different artists.
This image is copyright free and in the public domain anywhere that extends copyrights 70 years after death or at least 120 years after publication when the original illustrator is unknown.
