This question is about the covers of Penguin Classics, Oxford Classics, and other classics publishers that use details of pre-existing paintings and illustrations for their covers.
Certain classics publishers will choose as a cover for their book a detail from a painting that usually has no direct connection to the book. For instance, the cover of Twelfth Night could just be a Renaissance painting of an unnamed boy.
Have there been any scholarly analyses of this kind of cover? Analyses that talk about the kind of effect they have on readers, the cultural biases built into choosing such covers, etc, anything analysing any aspect of this kind of cover.
