By Amya N. Moore, Digitization Intern
Capturing the Collections: The McDougald Devotional Family Bible
One of the more interesting objects that the Digital Imaging Lab finished digitizing last February was The Devotional Family Bible. Published in the late 1800s by the publishing house Virtue and Yorston, New York, The Devotional Family Bible: Containing the Old and New Testaments According to the Most Approved Copies of the Authorized Version, with Practical and Experimental Reflections on Each Verse and Rich Marginal References and Readings contains Scripture and references by Reverend Alexander Fletcher. Fletcher (1787–1860) was a Scottish kirk minister known as a pioneer for his preaching to children and adolescents. He was also a publisher of many religious books, including devotional Bibles. This Bible, more commonly known as the “McDougald Devotional Family Bible,” contains family records from its previous owners, John and Nora McDougald (fig. 3), as well as 41 full-page steel engravings by renowned artists such as Gustave Doré, W. Hensel, Ary Scheffer, Raphael, and Leonardo da Vinci.
Figure 1: Image of the cover of the McDougald Devotional Family Bible.
Figure 2: Title page with the full title of this Bible. Image © Museum of the Bible, 2026. All rights reserved.
What are steel engravings?
Steel engravings are “an intaglio (meaning marking or carving) printmaking process in which lines are cut into a metal plate.” Ink is spread over the metal plate, seeping into the engravings, and then placed in a press to transfer the print.
No bigger than a piece of A4 paper, the engravings found in the McDougald Devotional Family Bible are highly detailed works of art. Typically found at the beginning of a new chapter or section, these etchings use hatching, cross-hatching, and stippling to depict biblical scenes in black and white.
What makes a Bible a “Family Bible”?
Family Bibles are typically large heirloom Bibles that are passed down in a single family, which often records the family’s genealogy and milestone moments in the front pages. These Bibles often contained artwork, maps, and diagrams that the whole family could use for study, too. The McDougald Family Bible is representative of this type. For example, this Bible contains John and Nora McDougald’s birth dates, their date of marriage, and the dates of the births of their seven children. The etchings in the Bible functioned not only as art but as learning aids for children, too.
Figure 3: This image shows one of the pages with written record of the McDougald family. Image © Museum of the Bible, 2026. All rights reserved.
Digitizing the Family Bible
The process of digitizing the McDougald Devotional Family Bible was relatively straightforward. Within the digitization lab, we followed the standard capturing procedure and, thankfully, did not have to do any special processes for this Bible. For the engravings, we re-focused the camera on the center, top-left, and bottom-right, creating a diagonal line across the etching to get a fully detailed rendering. Further, through our quality assurance process, we checked to make sure the engravings were clear, in-focus, and detailed before finalizing the images.
Click the images below to get a closer look at a couple of the steel engravings found in the McDougald Devotional Family Bible:
Based on Your Interests
