If we inspect things closely, we can find interesting secret messages that are invisible at first glance. This is also true for fore-edge paintings, illustrations done on the edges of the pages of books. A lot of them 'hide' from the naked eye and can be viewed only if the pages are fanned. Researchers guess that the the earliest fore-edge paintings date all the way back to the 10th century, however the first known disappearing versions are from 1649. At first these paintings were mostly decorative heraldic designs, but around 1750 the subject matter changed to landscapes, portraits, and religious scenes. Usually, the subject matter of a fore-edge painting is closely related to the book.
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