While going through the Special Collections & University Archives at the University of Iowa, Colleen Theisen noticed that there was a painting concealed on the edges of a book’s pages.
Titled Autumn by Robert Mudie, these fore-edge paintings reveal themselves when a book’s pages are fanned or spread out.
Fore-edge painting emerged in the 1650s, with some books having two paintings wedged between the pages—the second work of art appears when the reader flips over the book and fans the pages out.
Theisen has also shared the other books which have these “hidden” paintings, which are titled Spring, Summer and Winter.
Books are certainly full of surprises—you never know what you will find with a closer look.
[via This Is Colossal]