Painted Vellum Binding (5 results)

Hardcover. Condition: Very Good. Published circa 1900 (gift inscription dated 1908). 22 pp. Little book, measuring apx. 5.5" x 3". Presumably very scarce. The binding is lovely: full vellum with both front and rear panels painted in colors and heightened with gold. Light wear.

3 volume set in hand-painted vellum yapp bindings. 16cm x 11.5cm x 3.2cm . Each volume with hand-painted front and rear boards. Vellum boards with yapp leading edge, soiled and lacking ties. Light soiling to endpapers. Clean English text throughout. A very good set in scarce Florentine bindings. VG.

188 x 123 mm. (7 3/8 x 4 3/4"). viii, 900, [2] pp. CHARMING HAND-PAINTED VELLUM BY RIVIERE & SON (stamp-signed on front turn-in), front cover with a view of an arched balcony, a potted plant in the foreground, a book resting on the ledge, tree branches, blue sky, and two tiny gilt birds visible through the arches, rear cover framed by gilt fillets, smooth spine with a hand-painted tree outlined in gilt rising through two compartments, another compartment with gilt lettering, gilt-ruled turn-ins, marbled endpapers, all edges gilt. With engraved frontispiece portrait of the poet. Front flyleaf inscribed in ink, "To Rumply / from Mummy & Daddy / in recognition of her / matriculating. 1945 / 'Well Done.'" â A trace of soiling to head of rear joint, portrait and adjacent leaves a little foxed, but A FINE COPY with no other signs of use inside or out. This volume of the complete works of Tennyson was bound by Riviere in painted vellum reminiscent of the bindings produced at the Royal College of Art Needlework in the 1890s. Our binding was likely executed soon after the book was published (and definitely before it was presented in 1945, Riviere having merged with the Bayntun bindery in the 1930s). A problem with the Royal College of Art Needlework's painted vellum bindings was that the gilt--which was painted on, as it would be in an illuminated manuscript--tended to flake or rub off. Riviere solved this difficulty by tooling the gilt rather than painting it. The colors on painted vellum bindings can rub or fade with too much handling, but the present item has rarely, if ever, been read, and clearly was lovingly preserved by previous owners. Riviere was one of the great English binderies of both the Victorian and Edwardian eras. Robert Riviere began as a bookseller and binder in Bath in 1829, then set up shop as a binder in London in 1840; in 1881, he took his grandson Percival Calkin into partnership, at which time the firm became known as Riviere & Son, and the bindery continued to do business until 1939. They produced bindings in a bewildering range of styles, from the restrained to the extravagant, and always enjoyed a reputation for work of the highest quality.

No. 85 OF 160 COPIES ON LARGE PAPER. 382 x 275 mm. (15 x 10 3/4"). 4 p.l., 111, [1] pp. Publisher's gilt-stamped vellum, upper cover with titling and the Tennyson coat of arms, BOTH COVERS WITH LOVELY HAND-PAINTED DESIGN BY JOHN T. BEER, upper cover with urn at foot and blooming rose branches emanating from a medallion bearing the date 1902 and curving around the title and escutcheon, lower cover with branches of apple blossoms dividing the board into quadrants, each inhabited by a bird in flight, smooth spine with gilt titling, edges untrimmed. With frontispiece photographic portrait of Tennyson, 31 vignettes in the text, and 14 copper-plate engravings after drawings by Edward Hull. Verso of title page and limitations page with ink stamp of Gloucester County Library. Weber, "The Fore-Edge Paintings of John T. Beer" 195. â Small scratch near head of front joint, minor soiling and rubbing to edges of boards, mild foxing (mostly marginal, and not affecting copper engravings), otherwise an excellent copy, clean and fresh internally with wide margins, the binding especially bright, the pretty decoration perfectly preserved. AN EXTREMELY ATTRACTIVE COPY. This very large format deluxe illustrated work describing the places associated with England's beloved Poet Laureate, Alfred, Lord Tennyson, is enhanced by former owner John T. Beer's Arts & Crafts-style embellishments to the vellum binding. After retiring from a successful career as a clothier, Merseyside book collector Beer (ca. 1826-1903) occupied himself decorating books from his library, mostly with fore-edge paintings, but in a score of instances with painted bindings. Jeff Weber considers Beer "one of the most highly skilled artists of fore-edge paintings," noting that he was the first artist to put his signature to such works. Weber's catalogue raisonnée of Beer's works lists 189 fore-edge paintings, 22 painted bindings (including this one, #195), and three bindings designed by Beer and executed by Fazakerley of Liverpool. The design here is clearly influenced by the Arts & Crafts movement, and Beer owned several works by William Morris, including a Kelmscott Press "Godefrey of Bologne," on the vellum covers of which he had painted a design of tulips and lilies. Among the locations discussed and pictured in the "The Laureate's Country" are Tennyson's childhood homes (in Somersby and Bag Enderby), Trinity College, Cambridge (where he matriculated), and his estates (Farringford on the Isle of Wight and Aldworth in West Sussex).

188 x 140 mm. (7 3/8 x 5 1/2"). 72 pp.; [1] leaf (miniature); XXXII pp. Tasteful contemporary olive green crushed morocco, each cover WITH A CENTRAL RECESSED PANEL OF MODELLED AND PAINTED LEATHER, that on the upper cover with a portrait of the Virgin Mary within an arched frame of acanthus leaves, that on the lower cover with the coat of arms of the Deburghgraeve family. With text and decorations lithographed, featuring decorative borders and initials throughout, those on 55 pages COLORED AND ILLUMINATED BY HAND, many of these in a Medieval or Renaissance style, others with Japanese or Greek motifs, with a small hand-painted miniature of the Crucifixion against a golden sky, and WITH A FULL-PAGE HAND-PAINTED MINIATURE showing the Flight into Egypt within a decorative border featuring vignettes of a peasant gathering wood and a knight in armor praying. With a hand-painted ribbon bookmark "Souvenir de ma 1ère Communion" dated 6 June 1909; carbon copy of a poem "A la Memoire de ma tres chere et regrettee cousine Mathilde Deburghgraeve-Canal" by Lucy Salze-Bouchet, dated February 1945 (this with short curving tear into one margin). â Just the most trivial signs of wear, but A VERY FINE COPY, the vellum leaves quite clean and very bright, with shining decorations, and the binding lustrous and virtually unworn. Luxuriously lithographed on vellum, handsomely bound, and illuminated and painted by hand in vibrant colors, this charming prayer book was obviously treasured by its owners--the first of whom may have been a young lady who received it on the occasion of her First Communion. The text and decorations here have been reproduced lithographically from a manuscript of the period, being printed apparently by Bouasse-Lebel et Massin--a company specializing in devotional prints and books. (The firm's name appears in very small letters at various places in the volume.) Each leaf contains a different border design inspired by Medieval and Renaissance manuscripts, as well as artwork from around the world, in a pleasing pastiche of Western, Egyptian, Japanese, Indian, and Grecian motifs. Many of the borders have been hand-colored and present an array of distinct palettes, usually richly hued, which adds greatly to the book's appeal and the viewer's sense of discovery from page to page. The bespoke binding, featuring the Madonna in profile, beautifully modelled in leather, adds another element of luxury to the book. The coat of arms suggests that it was made for a member of the Deburghgraeve family, and the laid-in poem suggests that it remained with them through the death of the family's matriarch, Mathilde Deburghgraeve-Canal, in 1944. We know that Mathilde had three daughters all born around the turn of the century; based on the presence of a bookmark commemorating a First Communion in 1909, it is likely that the original recipient was among these three young ladies. Bouasse-Lebel was established in 1845 by Eulalie Bouasse-Lebel (1809-98) as a means of supporting herself and her children following the dissolution of her marriage. Though founded under difficult circumstances, Bouasse-Lebel became a very successful enterprise and even earned a papal commendation in 1871 for consistently excellent work. The company was highly regarded for the quality and delicacy of their productions, of which the present work is a choice example. Although individual religious cards printed by Bouasse-Lebel show up fairly frequently, far scarcer are complete books in the estimable condition seen here--particularly those with the kind of deluxe upgrades that make this particular item so desirable.