Bookplate, Royal Hungarian Midwifery Training Institute

Ernő Barta, painter and graphic artist, studied at the School of Applied Arts in Budapest, at the decorative painting programme. A restless soul, he lived and worked in many places (Munich, Budapest, Szolnok, Berlin, Dresden). He gained acknowledgement, above all, with his graphic series and posters.
Like many of his contemporaries, he began to make pieces of minor graphics in the early 20th century. While his paintings are characterized by a subtle naturalism, his bookplates are more striking and purposeful. He often employed firm outlines, monochromatic surfaces without shading, and silhouettes.
The bookplate he created for the Hungarian Royal Midwifery Training Institute is a coloured one. It shows a carefully swaddled infant inside a stylized wreath.
The figure brings in mind the swaddled infants and the compositional schemes of the terracotta tondi that adorn the arcade of the Ospedale degli Innocenti, the orphanage in Florence. The building was designed by Filippo Brunelleschi, while the reliefs were made in Andrea della Robbia’s ceramics workshop and were mounted in 1487.