Six Centuries of Master BookBinding
at Bridwell Library
9 February -29 April 2006
Johannes Richenbach (d. 1486), who conspicuously signed and dated many of his bindings from 1467 to 1486, is one of the few fifteenth-century bookbinders known by name. The parish chaplain at Geislingen near Ulm, Richenbach was the first binder known to decorate his bindings with rolls, that is, metal wheels bearing incised patterns that created repeating decorative friezes. He used rolls on bindings dated as early as 1469, although some of his roll-tooled bindings may be even earlier. At least fifty-eight of Richenbach’s bindings survive.
On the present pigskin binding, which Richenbach did not sign, the title “Discipulus” was blind-stamped and painted in large letters across the top of the upper cover. Richenbach’s unusual habit of adding red and dark brown pigment to certain blind-tooled emblems occurs here, as well. The three border rolls feature a repeated floral motif, hunters and birds, and running dragons. Both clasps and the metal bosses are modern replacements.
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This newly identified calfskin binding exhibits eighteen different blind stamps, several of which also appear on bindings signed by Conradus de Argentina, a highly skilled master who was active at Erfurt and possibly at his native Strasbourg from about 1467 to 1475. All eighteen of the stamps also recur on bindings attributed to the master’s followers. These include the eagle in a circle, double-eagle in a teardrop, unicorn in a lozenge, Madonna on a crescent, the four evangelists’ symbols, foliate designs, and rosettes. The metal bosses, corner plates, edge guards, and catches are original.
The overall composition of the tooling is typical of bindings from Erfurt: the broad outer frames with square compartments at the four corners enclose a characteristically narrow central rectangle filled with close-set blind-stamping. The late publication date (1481) of the binding suggests that this is actually one of several bindings by a follower who later utilized the older master’s tools in Strasbourg.
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Both the binding and the illuminations of this impressive book are the work of Ulrich Schreier (active c. 1469 to c. 1490), one of the outstanding artisans of fifteenth-century Austria. Schreier took commissions from many important ecclesiastical patrons and had workshops in Salzburg, Vienna, and Preßburg. The coat of arms on the front cover suggests that the book belonged to a member of the Henneberg family, possibly Berthold II von Henneberg, Archbishop of Mainz from 1484.
The exquisite decoration of the central panel on the upper cover was made by the process known as cuir-ciselé, in which a design is cut into the calfskin with a knife and offset by stippling the surrounding surface. The cuir-ciselé panel depicts an enthroned pope at the top and a black hen on the coat of arms at the bottom; both retain traces of original pigment. The pope is both a reference to the contents of the book, and a direct replica of Schreier’s illumination of a seated pope that introduces Book V of the text.
The design of the lower cover features Schreier’s characteristic use of a simple round-headed tool with a lobed base (called a “Kopfstempel” in German) around the perimeter of the central panel. With this tool, Schreier built up the undulating outlines of large oak leaves, naturalistically veined with curving fillets. The brass corner plates were engraved with foliate decoration that is similar to Schreier’s painted foliage. The two clasps and the central boss on each cover are modern replacements.
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Facing an unprecedented increase in book production, fifteenth-century Netherlandish binders popularized a time-saving measure known as panel stamping, in which heated metal plates cast in relief were impressed into the dampened leather covers in a press. This process allowed for a more abundant and pictorially coherent design than repetitious blind tooling did. Panel stamping eventually became the dominant form of binding decoration in Northern Europe during the sixteenth century.
On this English calfskin binding, a handsome panel stamp depicts the “Ecce Homo” (“Behold the Man”), the traditional devotional scene in which Christ, holding the instruments of his torture beneath a Gothic canopy, appears before the viewer just as he was shown to the people by Pontius Pilate (John 19:5). The panel stamp on the other cover shows pairs of dragons, falcons, and monstrous dogs framed by vegetal ornament.
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This binding bears the signed panel stamp used by Garrett Godfrey, a bookseller and binder active in Cambridge from 1502 until his death in 1539. Like many of England’s binders of the period, Godfrey came from the Netherlands (Limburg). In 1513 his countryman Desiderius Erasmus of Rotterdam, the author of this book, came to study at Cambridge and recorded that he stayed in Godfrey’s home. Signatures within the book indicate that this binding is one of very few surviving examples once owned by one of Godfrey’s recorded customers, the Cambridge theologian Dr. Simon Heynes (d. 1552).
The calfskin binding is one of at least fourteen that survive with Godfrey’s panel stamp with the monogram, “GG.” These initials appear on the upper cover within a shield at the foot of a large Tudor rose surrounded by scrolls bearing the couplet “Hec rosa virtutis de celo missa sereno Eternu[m] florens regia sceptra feret.” On either side of the rose are two angels in a field of flowers with the arms of St. George on the left and those of the City of London on the right. The panel stamp on the lower cover bears the royal arms of Henry VIII beneath a crown, all supported by two angels amid flowers.
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One of the many reflections of humanism on bookbinding in Renaissance Italy was the rise of “cameo bindings,” which were decorated with impressions from ancient medals or Renaissance imitations inspired by them. Developed in Florence before 1500 and widely popular by 1520, this method provided for an attractive design with a circular motif at the center of each cover, usually impressed in blind, but sometimes gilded. Although most cameo bindings featured antique subjects, religious themes were popular, as well.
This goatskin binding is the unique recorded example of this circular cameo of the Pietà. It depicts the seated figure of the Virgin Mary holding the body of her crucified son across her lap. On the left, St. John the Evangelist stands in prayer, while Mary Magdalen mourns at the right, her arms raised in anguish.
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One of the signature styles of Renaissance bookbinding is closely associated with the outstanding French collector, Jean Grolier (1479–1565). This elaborate style consists of narrow interlacing strapwork that is gilded and painted or enameled so as to stand in contrast to the background leather. Closely related to bindings made for Grolier, this calfskin binding belongs to a group of similar strapwork bindings that all feature the gold-tooled date “1552” at the centers of the covers.
The “1552” bindings were produced in a Parisian atelier that bound books for Thomas Wotton (1521–1587) of Kent, who has been called the “English Grolier.” The first Englishman to assemble a library of gold-tooled bindings, Wotton appears to have traveled to France several times by 1552, where he evidently was inspired by Grolier’s library. His own library, from which at least 140 books survive, suggests that he was well-read in the Classics and theology (in Latin and French), with special interest in works by the Swiss Reformer Jean Calvin.
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This edition of the Latin Bible was printed in Venice in 1511, but according to an inscription on the final leaf, the book was in Mexico City by 1559. Judging by the tools and the style of its calfskin binding, the Bible was bound in Mexico in the late sixteenth century. Such early Mexican gold-tooled bindings in the European tradition are extremely uncommon today. Most books imported into Mexico arrived without covers and were encased in undecorated limp vellum. The gilt central armorial device on both covers of this book, depicting a shield bearing the five wounds of the crucified Christ, belonged to the Great Convent of the Franciscans of Mexico City.
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The Parisian Jacques-Auguste de Thou (1553–1617) was a celebrated French
historian and statesman and an avid collector of books. His library was one
of the finest private collections of the period, numbering 6,600 volumes,
and it was particularly noted for its fine custom-made bindings. Although
the bindings in de Thou’s library represented a diversity of styles, four of
Bridwell Library’s examples are unified by the presence of the de Thou coat
of arms on both covers and the gold tooling of the title on the spine. De
Thou’s binders employed eight different armorial tools and six different
monogram tools that he possessed for their use.
This is one of only three known bindings commissioned by Jacques-Auguste de
Thou that is decorated with gold-stamped motifs repeated across all of its
surfaces. The gilt “IAM” monogram repeated throughout is that of de Thou and
his first wife, Marie de Barbançon-Cany, along with the de Thou armorial
bearing, a gadfly, which was used regularly on bindings before the 1587
wedding, as well. The marriage ended with Marie’s death in 1601, which
effectively dates the goatskin binding to 1590–1601.
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One of the great treasures of Bridwell Library, this early fifteenth-century manuscript of the Wycliffite New Testament was given by Elizabeth Perkins Prothro in 1996. That the manuscript was held in high esteem by its earlier owners is attested by the unusually fine calfskin binding it was given in the late sixteenth century. The ornate stepped centerpiece block with a dotted background, the elegant cornerpiece blocks, and the small hatched tool that terminates the four leafy extensions out of the centerpiece indicate that it is the work of the still-unidentified “MacDurnan Gospels Binder” (named after his famous binding at Lambeth Palace). Active from the 1560s to the late 1580s, this binder was favored by the wealthiest of English patrons of the period, including Elizabeth I.
Dr. Stephen Shepherd, Associate Professor of English at Southern Methodist University, has suggested an identification for the individual whose initials “HS” are displayed so prominently on the upper cover: the English scholar Sir Henry Spelman (c. 1564–1641), known for his large collection of medieval manuscripts and his expertise in the languages and ecclesiastical laws of pre-Reformation England. The key to this identification is an early seventeenth-century signature of “Worm,” found within the manuscript. Spelman’s papers reveal that he corresponded regularly with Dr. Olë Worm (1588–1654), Professor of Latin, Greek, Physics, and Medicine at the University of Copenhagen, who advised Spelman about the etymology and interpretation of much Anglo-Saxon writing. Letters from Worm to Spelman also show that they often sent each other books as gifts. It is therefore possible that this Wycliffite manuscript was a gift from Spelman to Worm, from one Protestant antiquarian to another.
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Although for centuries leather was the most common material for covering a book, many other materials were used, including various metals, woods, ivory, and a rich variety of textiles. Beginning in the fourteenth century royal and noble collectors often used silk brocade to cover their valuable manuscripts. By the fifteenth century these cloth covers were embroidered with fanciful designs or the owner’s insignia. Often a loose velvet envelope, or chemise, was wrapped around the binding for protection. Bindings with personalized adornment of this sort usually were reserved for small devotional books. While cloth and embroidered bindings fell from favor on the continent in the sixteenth century, they remained popular in England until the Restoration.
The covers of this Psalter are decorated with a delicately embroidered rose tree of coiled silver thread with green leaves and two pink flowers on the lower branches. Although the silver has oxidized, the rose on the lower cover still hints at the original variety of colors used. Multicolored insects made of silk thread buzz around each rose tree, while the spine is divided into three panels of two budding roses and a butterfly.
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The restoration of Charles II to the throne in 1660 initiated the “golden age” of English bookbinding, when England’s binders were no longer content to follow continental models but strove to develop their own decorative aesthetic. The best-known figure in Restoration binding was Samuel Mearne (1624–1683). Beginning as an apprentice to binders in London in 1637, Mearne had his own bindery in London by 1653. Shortly after the fall of the Commonwealth in 1660, Mearne was appointed Bookbinder to the King, and in 1675 he and his son Charles were granted the life-long offices of Bookbinder, Bookseller, and Stationer to the King. Mearne’s duties were many: in addition to binding over 700 books for the Royal Library, every few years there was a turnover for all religious service books used in the Chapels Royal, which required the binding of hundreds of Bibles and Books of Common Prayer.
This dyed goatskin binding, one of three by Mearne in the library’s collection, bears the monogram of Charles II — two opposed C’s with palm branches, crowned — which marked it for use in a Chapel Royal. Another Book of Common Prayer of 1662 in the Huntington Library is bound almost identically to the Bridwell copy, and it is likely they both originated in the 1666 turnover of books for the Chapels Royal.
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Intended for private use, this pocket-sized edition of musical settings of the Huguenot Psalter was bound à la fanfare, an elaborate gold-tooled binding style that was popular in France and England in the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries. Although the word “fanfare” evokes showy ornamentation, it is not a descriptive term: it became attached to the binding style only after the nineteenth-century French collector Charles Nodier instructed his binder, Joseph Thouvenin, to bind the title Fanfare et corvées abbadesques in imitation of this sixteenth-century style. The original style grew out of the Grolieresque strapwork style and, less directly, Eastern ornament. This tiny calfskin binding exhibits all seven of the essential characteristics that define “fanfare” bindings:
1. Ornamentation that is the product of small stamps.
2. Decoration that fully covers both top and bottom boards.
3. A design composed of compartments of various shapes and sizes.
4. A central larger or distinctive compartment.
5. All the work is gilt.
6. The ornament includes foliage.
7. Each compartment is delineated by one single and one double gilt fillet.
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This handsome binding contains Bridwell Library’s earliest complete printed book, published in 1459 by Gutenberg’s successors in Mainz, Fust and Schoeffer. A treasure in any age, it was bound in England early in the eighteenth century by a binder who worked for one of England’s foremost collectors of early books, the second Earl of Oxford, Edward Harley (1689–1741). The style of the “Harleian” bindings is exemplified nicely by this impressive volume. Typically, they employ deep red goatskins decorated in gold with a large cusped oval or lozenge-shaped center ornament made with many small but ornate tools, and gilt ornamental rolls for the borders and turn-ins.
Although records kept by the Harleian Librarian, Humfrey Wanley (d. 1726), cannot prove that this vellum copy of the 1459 Durandus was owned by the Earl of Oxford, the tooling indicates that it was bound by Christopher Chapman (fl. 1718–1756), who bound many of Harley’s most important books, including 25 books printed on vellum, in 1724.
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Like Thomas Hollis, Jonas Hanway gave away specially bound presentation copies of wholesome literature in an effort to fortify the morals of English society. Born in Portsmouth, Hanway was a dedicated philanthropist, author of some 150 books and pamphlets, founder of the Marine Society, champion of whole wheat bread, and a fierce opponent of drinking tea. He was also supposedly the first Englishman to make the umbrella an acceptable, even fashionable accessory for the male gender. Although his writings were intended for the unlettered, Hanway also presented books to King George III, to members of his court, prominent libraries, and his own friends.
Hanway employed two unidentified binders for his presentation copies, and the second binder, active from 1765, utilized a small set of emblematic tools in combinations that were dictated by Hanway’s highly personalized iconographic program. This copy of Hanway’s advice to sailors was bound in 1780 with an ever-seeing eye at each corner of the upper cover; at the center the motto “O Save the Defender of the Faith” is gold-tooled in a circular pattern around the IHS monogram of Christ. On the lower cover is the winged hourglass (tempus fugit) and the motto “Let Us Consider. A.D. MDCCLXXX.” At least five copies of Hanway’s Seaman’s Christian Friend exist in identical goatskin presentation bindings.
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Crowded with a great variety of simple stamps and painted in garish pigments, this type of vellum binding is known in German as “Bauern Einbände” (peasant bindings). Although such bindings do not exhibit the highest degree of mastery, betraying the strong influence of folk art, they are by no means bindings for peasants. Since they often incorporate gilt edges and brass clasps, we must assume that the people who purchased them were not only literate, but also possessed disposable income. The style originated in Hungary, spread through Germany, and also became popular in Scandinavia and the Netherlands for Bibles, prayer books, and hymnals presented as wedding gifts.
The binding for this Lutheran Bible in German, tinted with light orange, yellow, and green paint, bears two brass clasps cast in the shape of the Blessing Christ. Both of the covers were tooled with the legend “Ehre sey Gott” (Glory to God), along with a great variety of blind-stamped motifs, including hearts, cherubs, flowers, stars, flourishes, columns, chalices, a dove, and the crucified Christ at the center. The pairs of hearts prominent on the upper and lower covers contain the initials “CS” and “IP,” which likely belonged to a pair of newlyweds.
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This binding provides a prime example of both the Victorian taste for highly decorative “medieval” bindings and of nineteenth-century industrial ingenuity. It is one of a limited number of such bindings made for this edition of the Book of Ecclesiastes, “illuminated” in neo-Gothic style with chromolithographs designed by the noted calligrapher Owen Jones (1809–1874). The light wooden relievo covers, designed by Jones but bearing the ticket of Edmonds & Remnants, London, were produced by heat stamping in a machine press. They effectively imitate the carving on Flamboyant Gothic architecture and church furnishings, even if they bear little resemblance to actual Gothic bookbindings. The upper cover of The Preacher features rich foliate decoration surrounding the calligraphic title, while both covers are framed on the top, left, and right edges by the words, “Vanity of vanities, saith the preacher, all is vanity.” Moulded lengthwise on the narrow leather spine are the words, “Vanity of vanities, all is vanity.”
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The Doves Bindery opened in 1893 under the leadership of Thomas J. Cobden-Sanderson (1840–1922). It aspired to do for bookbinding what the Kelmscott Press did for printing: establish binding as an fine art by using the highest quality materials and the best manual binding techniques. Cobden-Sanderson, who disapproved of the shoddy workmanship of the modern commercial binderies, also criticized the “deplorable miracles of misapplied skill” coming out of the popular firms like Rivière & Sons and Zaehnsdorf’s. When William Morris needed a suitable binding for the Kelmscott Press Chaucer, he naturally turned to his friends at the Doves Bindery. Morris wanted a fifteenth-century style binding for the Chaucer, but Cobden-Sanderson, declining to produce a retrospective pastiche, convinced Morris to design it himself for the Doves Bindery to execute.
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Sangorski & Sutcliffe was one of England’s foremost luxury binding firms during the early decades of the twentieth century. Founded in London in 1901 by the Polish émigré Francis Longinus Sangorski (1875–1912) and George Sutcliffe (1878–1943), the firm began in 1905 to specialize in magnificent custom-made jeweled leather bindings. Some of their most lavish efforts were reserved for unique literary manuscripts such as this one, written in neo-Gothic calligraphy with beautiful Pre-Raphaelite illuminations by Alberto Sangorski (1862–1932), the binder’s brother. The firm’s greatest work, a copy of the Rubáiyát of Omar Khayyám that incorporated more than 1,000 jewels, went down with the S. S. Titanic in 1912.
Although Tennyson’s romantic poem The Lady of Shalott is set in the medieval realm of Camelot, the calfskin binding inlaid with colored goatskin evokes the floral opulence of Islamic art. The six-pointed recessed panel on the upper cover, containing eight opals around a single carnelian, serves as a handsome centerpiece, while the contrast between the turquoise arabesque shapes with cream bellflowers and the surrounding black fields of leafy red roses creates the effect of cornerpieces. On the lower cover, this design is echoed by fields of gilt roses on turquoise.
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By the beginning of the twentieth century, women were well represented in the binding trade. Katharine Adams (1862–1952) made this elegant gold-tooled goatskin binding for Charles H. St John Hornby, the founder of the Ashendene Press. Largely self-trained, Adams enjoyed the patronage of several private presses, including the Doves Press, the Ashendene Press, and the Kelmscott Press. Her most significant works date from the first quarter of the twentieth century, although she continued to bind books until her death. She produced some of her finest work for books from the Ashendene Press, whose founder became one of her first clients and a lifelong friend.
Shown with the Virgil is the Ashendene Press Ecclesiasticus (1932) that Adams bound for Hornby. Tipped into this volume is a letter of 1898 that represents the first contact between the future friends and colleagues. Above it Hornby wrote “This is the last of some 60-70 bindings which she did for me in the course of her working life.” Actually, Adams produced over one hundred bindings for Hornby, out of an estimated lifetime total of about 300 bindings.
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Jacques Anthoine-Legrain (1907–c. 1970) was Pierre Legrain’s stepson and assistant. Beginning in 1929 he continued the late master’s geometric aesthetic and gained high standing as a design binder in his own right. The exhibited binding borrows one of Pierre Legrain’s major innovations, in that the design sweeps from cover to cover. Moreover, it enforces the modern concept of the binding as a reflection of the book’s content, as the title of the work naturally suggested the repeated use of the gilt heart shapes that cascade across the red goatskin covers and onto the doublures within. It is what the French would call “une jolie reliure.”
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Pierre-Lucien Martin (1913-1985) ranks high among the outstanding French design binders of the last half century. Trained at the École Estiènne in Paris, he gained experience in several binderies before emerging as a designer in his own right after World War II. His designs are characterized by understated color, impressive three-dimensional effects, and intricate but highly logical applications of geometry.
Illustrated with original etchings by Pablo Picasso (1881-1973), this obscure parody of chivalric poetry concerns a wraith-like woman of the French court who had earned the seventeenth-century author’s deepest contempt. Martin’s tripartite composition, mirrored on each cover, makes use of an abstract, multifaceted vertical contour as the basic module for the entire design. This raised contour, outlined in white, is displayed in its basic form in the panel nearest the spine. A second version of the contour, now inverted and with a different texture, appears in the central panel. In the panel nearest the fore edge, these two variations are combined into a single, complex figure. Throughout the progression on each cover, similar inversions apply to the direction of the textured grain, to what is raised and what is recessed, and to what is textured or remains smooth. The final form of the figure, repeated on the spine, evokes the spindly, attenuated anatomy of Picasso’s late Cubist illustrations within.
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The Frenchman Henri Creuzevault (1905–1971) became one of the leading design binders in Paris before World War II. The son of a famous trade binder, he was fully trained in sewing and decorative tooling, although until 1937 the sewing of his bindings was done by his brother Louis-Claude, who died that year. Henri continued to design bookbindings after that, but he no longer did his own tooling. In 1956 he gave up binding in order to concentrate on the management of his art gallery.
In this stunning binding for Virgil’s classical verses, the main design element is the poet’s timeless attribute, the laurel wreath. Characteristic of Creuzevault’s late work, the design depends less on the gold fillets so beloved by his contemporaries and concentrates more on the bold geometry and subtle color combinations of the calfskin inlays. The two covers, which are reflections of each other, echo the book’s Cubist lithographs by Jacques Villon. The inlaying and tooling were executed by André Jeanne after Creuzevault’s colored chalk drawings
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James Brockman (b. 1946) has enjoyed a distinguished career working with traditional materials as a conservator and design binder at his bindery in Oxford. However, he is perhaps most famous for the first “electronic” binding, made in 1978 with technical assistance from Brian Cantle and advice from the binding historian Howard Nixon. The transparent Perspex plates of the upper cover contain nameplates identifying sixteen important stages in the development of bookbinding, spanning from the seventh-century Stonyhurst Gospel to an undisclosed future. A small diode activated by a switch on the upper cover, powered by solar cells and batteries stored in the spine, illuminates each nameplate. Suspended inside the plates of the lower cover are 26 miniature reproductions of historic bindings, including the present one. According to Brockman, his revolutionary binding was inspired by criticism that he was not “progressive” enough. Well-connected to the contents of the book within, this work took bookbinding in a new direction, and into the electronic age.
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Internationally acclaimed bookbinder and conservator Jan Bohuslav Sobota was born in Czechoslovakia in 1939. He studied binding in Pilzen and Prague until 1957, and by 1977 his works had earned him formal recognition as a “Master of Bookbinding.” Defecting to Switzerland in 1982, he brought his family to the United States in 1984, working as a conservator at Case Western Reserve University before coming to Bridwell Library, where he served as Director of the Conservation Laboratory from 1990 to 1997. He and his family returned to the Czech Republic in 1997, but he visits this library annually as a guest binder and conservator.
Sobota’s “sculptural” bindings were among the first of this type to emerge in the 1960s. Taking the forms of seated devils, giant fish, Frank Lloyd Wright houses, and fruit, his bindings clearly echo the contents of the books. Like several of the artist’s sculptural bindings, the exhibited work of 1990 is lightly erotic, combining the shape of a pear and a female lower rear torso. In this case, it appears that the binding reflects the dual nature of the Song of Songs, which celebrates the love of God through the allegory of physical love. The “pear” is covered in green and yellow painted buckskin surmounted by a stem, while the torso is in crushed white buckskin. Within the two-part leather “box” is a manuscript by the calligrapher Michael Sull, the leaves of which echo the shape of the outer container. The “pear” binding protects the manuscript within just as did the medieval box bindings that provided its initial inspiration.
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