Silver Electroplate Art Nouveau Book Cover.

This dazzling silver book cover was designed and modeled by Lilian Simpson, a young artist who studied at the National School of Art in South Kensington (later the Royal College of Art) under the French-born sculptor Édouard Lantéri. The theme of the design is the growth of Life (represented by the flowering and fruit) watched over by Spirits (shown in the angles) and anchored by Love (center). It earned a gold medal in a national design competition in 1894 and was exhibited in the Royal Academy in 1896. 

The Grolier Club copy was separated into pieces and mounted on this velvet mount for an unidentified nineteenth-century exhibition. Other copies survive intact covering a purple velvet-bound blank book.