Browse Items (259 total)

This image shows a very fine mottling scheme, where the white/cream colours are omnipresent on a background of red and blue. In this example, the dark colours had been deposited on the surface of the liquid mixture before the white. It is this last…

Printed in Merseburg (Germany) in 1753 by Christian Ludwig Forberger, this work displays an outstanding and perhaps mindboggling combination of font sizes and styles, as well as a mixture of red and black lettering, on one title page. (With no proof…

Bringing to life the adage of “waste not, want not”, this book’s binding is made of parchment that originally was someone’s correspondence. With paper and leather being expensive commodities due to the ever-increasing amount of titles being published…

The endpapers of this accounting “textbook” by François Barrême, a very popular work in its time, was used by its owner to puzzle out practical exercises of calculation, including problems and answers.

This book offers a typical example of the classic formula of “promise” and “reward” that one regularly finds in books of the 15th and 16th centuries. The phrasing varies as per the personality and humour of the owner and how much value he assigns to…

This religious work was published in Québec City by Samuel Neilson (1800-1837) and William Cohen. Samuel Neilson inherited his printing studio from his father, printer John Neilson (1776-1848), who was the printer for the Gazette de Québec, and the…

Aldus Manutius (1449-1515), active in Venice, was an Italian printer, credited for the invention of Italic type, as well as “pocket” format books (chiefly the octavo, which was easily portable, in contrast to the very large formats popular at the…

This title, dating the end of the 19th century, offers the viewer a fine example of “combed” marble. The colours chosen in this example, however, are unusual and demonstrate the limitless creativity that surrounded the manufacturing of marbled paper…

Another example of parchment on cardboard, this binding is on exhibit to show the leather ties that were used to keep the book closed when not in use. Due to the fragility of the leather used to make ties, it is rare that they survive the passage of…

This exquisite binding in red morocco is a modern binding, probably dating to 350-400 years after the book was initially printed. Tooled and stamped in gilt, with elaborately gilded edges, this was a binding executed for someone with a love of luxury…