Library Company of Philadelphia
“Thy time is come, thy glass is spent
No golden bribes can Death prevent."
This watercolor half-skeleton is part of a book of metamorphic pictures based on the text of Benjamin Sand’s *Metamorphosis.* The verses are revealed and the images change as you open the flaps, telling a story of life, progress and death. This #spinetingling frame, as you might have guessed, is from the end.
Benjamin Sands. [Metamorphosis, or, A transformation of pictures with poetical explanations]. [United States? :s.n.,1802]
Each of the five panels folds at the top and bottom to create three illustrations. This book form, called “metamorphosis,” was so popular that thirty-nine editions were printed in America before 1820. Other manuscript copies exist, but all copies are unique.
You can see this book in person in our current exhibition, The Living Book: New Perspectives on From and Function on display through January 5th, 2018.