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…
This item’s binding is of black morocco (goatskin), one of the many colours that this very fine goatskin leather could be dyed with at the time. Its title appears in gilt on the spine, with gilt double borders on its front and back covers and gilded…
Here we see the remnants of the leather straps that would have served to keep the book closed. More often than not, these fragile closures have not stood the test of time.
Elizabeth Flesher was the widow of printer James Flesher (? - 1670), himself son of printer Miles Flesher. The Fleshers, father and son, were most renowned for their printing of Arabic texts, so it would be quite appropriate for this text containing…
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…
An ex-libris embossed on a leather over was one way of indicating ownership of a book. In this example, however, we do not see a familial coat of arms, as can be seen in image no.8, but the “Quebec Library” choosing to simply spell out its name in…
The marbling technique for this decorative paper has been achieved with the use of the comb tool. The colours used are also date to the mid-19th century and are not the classic and uniform blues, reds, yellows and whites colours typical of the 18th…
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…