When One Book Leads to a Hundred New Trails
Recently I came across the book Les Flagellants et les flagellés de Paris, published in 1902.
Some of the artworks were already familiar to me, others weren’t. I thought it would be a good idea to make them available to all visitors and share a bit of the work that happens behind the scenes.
When I find a book like this, the first thing I do is check whether all the illustrations are present. If they aren’t, I start digging further using the title of the book. That rarely produces good results right away, for some books I search almost daily. Apart from searching by title, I also use reverse image search. Those are the most “dangerous” but often also the most rewarding hunts. They lead me to other artworks that send me down completely different paths. Sometimes I’m following several digital trails at the same time, and yes, every now and then I get lost or lose sight of the original search.
When I land on the trail of a specific artist, it becomes a different kind of search. I usually know fairly quickly whether the artist is already among the 250+ artists in my collection. So on the rare occasion that I encounter a name that isn’t, I do a little victory dance… which is often immediately followed by a groan of frustration. Finding more of their work (especially work linked to illustrated books) can easily take several hours. I’m quite happy to pick up that particular thread again over a number of days or even weeks. Only when I feel there’s nothing more to be found do I look at what I’ve saved and decide whether there’s enough material to create a new page for the artist. If there isn’t, I store the folder in my archive. Very occasionally I come across more work years later and can then put together a more complete page.
Quite often I also find loose drawings that can be added to an existing online collection. If I’m lucky I recognise the artist’s style, or I check what’s already online. That sometimes means quickly scanning fifty images to see if they’re already on the site. If they are, I compare the quality. Is my new find an improvement? Then I replace the old one. If not, the image goes into the trash and I’m left a little wiser (and slightly poorer in illusions).
Because that, I think, is the core of what I do: the feeling that I’ve found something that can be added to a collection of more than 17,500 artworks… only to discover that it was already there. Sometimes I realise I hadn’t recognised the artist before and the image is sitting in one of the “unknown artists” folders. And sometimes I discover that I’ve invested time (and occasionally money) for nothing, because I already had the most complete set in the best possible quality.
It’s a strange and challenging occupation,one I pursue with a lot of love, and sometimes with a fair amount of frustration as well. 😉
Artists featured in the gallery below that thave their own collection on this site:
