The Styles of Ornament (Dover Pictorial Archive)

There is no larger collection of ornament in print anywhere today. This more than 600 page volume contains 3765 different illustrations on 400 full page plates! Indispensable for artists, designers, illustrators, architects, craftsmen, students, and anyone else searching for distinctive, authentic design, individual illustrations are royalty-free—buy the book and thousands of unusual drawing are yours for the using.
Where are the ornaments from? The vanished civilizations of ancient Egypt, Babylonia, Persia, Phoenicia, Judah, India, Greece, Rome, Pompeii, the Celts, the Etruscans; from China, Japan, Arabia, India, Cambodia; from Russia, Scandinavia, the United States, Germany, France, Italy, England, Austria, Spain, and other countries.
What periods are covered? Prehistoric and primitive; antiquity; the Middle Ages, including early-Christian ornaments of the Lombards, Visigoths, Franks, and Byzantines, Romanesque ornament, Mohammedan ornament, and Gothic ornament; Renaissance ornament in Florence, Venice, Portugal, Switzerland, the Netherlands, Poland; Rococo ornament throughout Europe; Colonial style in the United States: nineteenth century classical revival, with designs of Sheraton and Hepplewhite; Empire; and Biedermeier and Neoclassical ornament in Germany.
What design elements and objects? Gargoyles; Buddhas; dragons; capitals, bases, and shafts of columns; necklaces, rings, other jewelry; urns, vases; friezes; buildings of brick, wood, stone; tables, chairs, mirrors, chests, hardware; tapestries and cloths; statues; suits of armor, helmets, lances; mitres; fantastic animals, centaurs, cupids; religious objects; keyholes; sedan chair; bridges; coats of arms; and hundreds of others. This wide spectrum of styles will almost literally be a bottomless treasury of source material that you will use again and again, each time finding something different.