Painted Binding (6 results)

Scarce miniature book with hand-painted decoration. 2.75" x 2.25" x 0.5" (7.2cm x 5.8cm x 1.4cm). pp.256. Soiled vellum binding in very good condition. Both boards and spine with hand-painted decoration. Original leather tie still attached. Patterned endpapers. Gift inscription in red to front free-endpapers: "Of great value. Hand painted cover. From Father, brought from Venice July 1909. A.D. To Ailen Mary Danby." Portrait frontis. Clean English text throughout, plus a further 3 full-page illustrations. VG .

Hardcover. Condition: Near Fine. 1st Edition. 1894. Author's Edition. Two volumes 16mo (3 ½ by 5 ½ inches). Volume 1: (viii), pp 263 plus 30 pages of ads: Volume 2: (1-7) pp 8-284 plus 32pages of ads. In an extraordinary full tan calf binding. Spine with four raised bands in gilt and delicately painted floral decorations in compartments. Both front and rear boards with a depressed inset decorated with an elaborate floral panel in gilt, amber and green. The border surrounding the inset with painted floral devices. Top edges gilded and gauffered. Crimson watered silk endpapers with the binder's stamp, Norsa-Venetia, in gilt in the rear of each volume. Inner hinges cracked but sound. Slight loss at the upper spine tip of volume 1 and the lower spine tip of volume 2. Volume 2 with a light, narrow scuff to the spine and a small diffuse spot on the front cover. Volume 1 with a small stain to the spine edge and board. With the bookplate of Gertrude Chandler Tucker, whose father, Harrison Chandler, founded Chandler and Price, a major manufacturer of printing presses. In all, a nearly fine set with the intricately painted original designs nicely preserved. Given the publication date of 1894 and a 1906 gift inscription on the front flyleaf, we would date this binding between 1895 and 1905. A rare production.

24mo (binding size 96 x 55 mm). [80] pp. Rule page borders (fore-edges cut close, some borders shaved, small hole in title). Text block stitched into a contemporary gold-embroidered case binding with two original watercolor drawings: both covers with large asymmetrical curving goldwork design couched on a gold basketwork ground, embroidered on a plain textile (visible at board edges), the design incorporating an abstract plant or cornucopia, and framing on each cover a different watercolor emblem of fidelity, painted on glazed paper (or possibly vellum): on the front cover a putto holds a bow and arrow, while a dog rests behind him, below a neat manuscript caption in majuscules, ?Fidel jusqu?à la mort?; on the rear cover a blindfolded putto with his quiver on his back is led by a dog on a pink leash through a coastal landscape, with caption ?La Fidelité me conduit?; the covers edged with vermeil strips, spine with sinuous couched goldwork band, edges gilt, dark purple silk liners; housed in a contemporary two-part morocco pull-off case, lined in color-blocked paper. In near-perfect condition (very slight darkening of some of the goldwork on lower cover).*** A superb example of one of the earliest and most sought-after types of French luxury almanac bindings. A single, probably Parisian atelier, active in the 1760s, seems to have been responsible for a group of innovative small bindings featuring small painted love-emblems on vellum, enclosed in glowing rococo frames composed of padded fretwork covered in gold-wrapped thread which entirely hides the plain textile cover. These inventive and successful bindings inspired emulators, paving the way for an explosion of imaginative almanac bindings over the next three decades, incorporating silk, embroidery, paintings, glass, mica, metal foil, and other materials, as well as the more traditional leathers, arranged in an enticing variety of patterns and designs and creating a full-fledged industry of these little books, produced by stationer-binders, who sub-contracted their textile bindings to professional embroiderers. It may seem extraordinary that such an elaborate binding would be used for a small, cheap publication like the present almanac, printed by Léonard Cuissart soon after 5 November 1762 (date of the printing permission on the last page). Containing songs, proverbs, and a calendar of Saints? days, it is an unillustrated precursor to the more elaborate almanachs galants produced during the next few decades. Like them, it would have been given as a New Year?s gift (étrenne), and indeed a love-gift. This fact explains the apparent paradox of such a labor-intensive production method for the cover decoration of an ephemeral publication: ?The status of gifts held by these little works . quickly conferred upon them, in the eyes of an elite clientele, the double role of bibelot [bauble] and of an object of gallantry likely to become a precious souvenir, and thus worthy of receiving a decoration formerly reserved only for the most precious publications? (Fabienne le Bars, no. 35b, Éloge de la rareté, trans.). It was in the 1760s that the fashion for such palm-sized treasure books first surfaced. A few later imitations of this ?goldwork? style are known, of somewhat inferior workmanship, on almanacs from the 1770s (see, for example, no. 35b in the Bibliothèque nationale de France 2014 exhibition catalogue Eloge de la rareté). The frequent misattribution of this type of goldwork binding to the Low Countries seems to be based on a few examples of those emulative bindings from the 1770s, found on almanacs from Liège (see, for example, Livres en broderie, no. 176). Whether or not those later imitations were indeed produced in or near Liège, the original examples of these goldwork bindings, such as this one, were almost certainly produced in Paris, as is evident from the almanacs they cover: see, for example, a group of four such almanacs, offered by Patrice Rossignol, in his catalogue 18, no. 25, all on Paris almanacs from 1760 to 1769 (with a fifth, inferior example from 1773). Most surviving goldwork bindings have suffered from handling, and are worn or darkened; thanks to its original case, the present lovely binding has been exceptionally well preserved. I locate no other copies of the almanac, which was not recorded by Grand Carteret. Cf. Bibliothèque nationale de France, Éloge de la rareté: cent trésors de la Réserve des livres rares (Paris: BnF, 2014) and ibid., Livres en broderie (Paris: BnF, 1995-96).

Hardcover. Condition: Near Fine. Special Edition. 24mo., [iv], 405 pages, title-page and text printed in red and black, also specially bound in are 6 unique finely hand-painted pictorial illuminations on vellum paper (see illustations), marbled endpapers, all edges blocked in gilt, specially bound in full contemporary red morocco with both covers and spine covered in repeating gilt fleur-de-lys des patterns, all within gilt-ruled double borders and a further outer gilt decorated border together with decorative inner gilt dentelles. A near fine copy in a most handsome binding with only light occasional minimal wear to some extremities which contains 6 unique finely hand-painted illuminated drawings on vellum paper which have been professionally bound into this fine work. With a neat Presentation inscription to blank front endpaper, 'Florence V. Higginson from Edgar Selright, June 27. 1882' "In Memoriam". The Book of Common Prayer is the name given to a number of related prayer books used in the Anglican Communion and by other Christian churches historically related to Anglicanism. The first prayer book, published in 1549 in the reign of King Edward VI of England, was a product of the English Reformation following the break with Rome. The work of 1549 was the first prayer book to include the complete forms of service for daily and Sunday worship in English. In 1604, James I ordered some further changes, the most significant being the addition to the Catechism of a section on the Sacraments; this resulted in the 1604 Book of Common Prayer. Following the tumultuous events surrounding the English Civil War, when the Prayer Book was again abolished, another revision was published as the 1662 prayer book. That edition remains the official prayer book of the Church of England, although throughout the later twentieth century, alternative forms which were technically supplements have largely displaced the Book of Common Prayer for the main Sunday worship of most English parish churches.

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.

A Charming Hand-Painted Binding in the Pre-Raphaelite Style [PAINTED BINDING]. PHILLIPS, Stephen. Poems. London: John Lane: The Bodley Head, 1898. Second edition. Small octavo (7 9/16 x 4 5/8 inches; 192 x 118 mm.). viii, 108, [2, Some Press Notices]. A few leaves slightly browned., otherwise excellent. Full parchment, front cover with a 'Pre-Rahaelite' woman' in ink and watercolor, highlighted in gilt and with a leafy twining border in watercolor and gilt. Rear cover with two gilt borders with small watercolor fleurons. Spine with watercolor and gilt twining leaf, lettered in gilt, edges uncut. Ex libris Virginia House, Richmond with their stamp on front paste-down. Ink signature "A. & V. Waddell / Virginia / 1925" on font free endpaper. A charming little binding which was hand painted by an unidentified artist somewhere between 1898 and 1925. Stephen Phillips (1864-1915) was an English poet and dramatist who enjoyed considerable popularity early in his career. In 1890, a slender volume of verse was published at Oxford titled Primavera, which contained contributions by him, his cousin Laurence Binyon, and others. In 1894, he published Eremus, a long poem of loose structure in blank verse with a philosophical complexion. In 1896, he published Christ in Hades, forming one of the slim paper-covered volumes of Elkin Mathews's Shilling Garland. This poem caught the eye of critics, and when it was followed by a collection of Poems in 1897, Phillips's position as a new poet of exceptional gifts was generally recognized. This volume contained a new edition of Christ in Hades, together with Marpessa, The Woman with the Dead Soul, The Wife, and shorter pieces, including To Milton, - Blind. The volume won the prize of £100 offered by the Academy newspaper for the best new book of its year, ran through half a dozen editions in two years, and established Phillips's rank as a poet, which was sustained by the publication of his poem Endymion in the Nineteenth Century in 1898. Provenance: Alexander Weddell (1876-1948) and Virginia Chase Steedman (1874-1948). The couple first met in Calcutta, India, in 1923 where Mr. Weddell was serving as U.S. consul-general. Alexander was a bachelor in his forties from Richmond, Virginia, and Virginia was a wealthy widow from St. Louis, when they were introduced by friends. Mr. Weddell accompanied Virginia Steedman and her companions back to the United States by cruise ship. Virginia's letters from the period first are addressed to "Mr. Weddell," but soon moved to the more personal "Alex." Four months later, on May 31, 1923, they were married at the Cathedral of St. John the Divine in New York City. The couple combined their passions and resources to build Virginia House in Richmond.