The etude / A.E. Dressler.

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Here a woman poses with a violin, a pairing that sets this cover apart from the many other music sheets on the board that show singers or pianists. The title, "The Etude," points to a short study piece meant to build a player's technique, and the cover presents that idea through a fashionable figure of the 1900s. Sheet music like this was often made as eye-catching color reproductions, which let publishers sell popular songs and instruction pieces to home musicians who wanted their parlors to look up to date. The record credits A.E. Dressler, though little else about the artist is known, so the image is best read as a snapshot of how music and women's leisure were pictured in the years before 1910.

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