Browse Items (259 total)

The design here imitates that of a peacock’s fanned tail. After one has deposited the colours on the thickened solution of water and used the comb to create the first series of designs, one then uses a stylus to refine the design. The marbler is…

This exquisite example of a mark of ownership is not even that of a book owner but that of a bookseller in Glasgow, Scotland, who had this item for sale in their shop. This practice ensured that this item could be traced back to its original point of…

This item has been rebound at least once since its initial binding, this being demonstrated by evidence that the text block has been cut to fit a newer binding. The current binding is on calfskin which has been dyed green. While it is usually morocco…

The front flyleaf has an elaborate inscription that is quite illegible due to its flamboyant handwriting. We do see the initial sentence “Souvenir de Pierre Grospin, dit le vieux grognard à M. Ballard.” These novellas parodying the bacchanalian seem…

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.

The pages that serve to form the inner boards of this work are actually composed of printer’s waste (printed sheets that could not be used by the printer or binder in a final copy). Boards of this nature were created by gluing several sheets of paper…

This work displays the printer’s device of Simon de Colines. De Colines (ca. 1475-1546) was active in Paris from about 1520 until his death in 1546. De Colines had actually collaborated with printer Henri Estienne (1528-1598), continuing printing…

The use of marbling reaches its pinnacle with this example, with its swirling motif, which appear to be created in a “freestyle” manner. Of special note with this work is the fact that the edges of the book have been decorated using a similar…

This shows us a variation in the rendering of roman numerals. Using a format scholar Paul Lewis calls “deep parenthesis”, an “I” flanked between by both a forward facing C and an upside down, backward facing C, would represent “1000”. And “I” before…

This title by Bounhours demonstrates the reuse of the materials by bookbinders. In this particular case, a very refined and aesthetically pleasing handwriting adds to the charm of this “recycled” bookbinding. The hand is unknown; does it stem from an…