Every year the fun-loving Hewitt family toured Europe, where they purchased books, prints, textiles, and objects for their budding collections. This photograph shows the Hewitt sisters, Sarah, Amy, and Eleanor, on a gondola in Venice in the 1880s. Perhaps the inspiration for this birdcage, the Rialto Bridge, is just behind them. The oldest bridge to span the...

  Over the past several weeks, I explored the Cooper-Hewitt Museum Design Museum Library’s collection of illustrated children’s books as part of the Arts Intern program through Studio in a School. During my time in the Library, I have discovered seemingly endless treasures in the children’s book collection, including a vast range of illustrative styles,...