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A miniature silver binding decorated with painted enamel plaques and glass “jewels.”

ref. 4426Paris 18th century. Silver filigree binding 82 x 60 mm. including spine. The covers of filigree volutes and curling tendrils with inset painted enamel oval centerpiece and heart-shaped corner-pieces showing putti in pastoral settings below love-related mottos in French central plaque on front cover slightly damaged both covers decorated with ten glass “amethysts”; hollow tubular filigree spine pair of fore-edge clasps and catches the silver binding mounted over later yellow silk-covered thin pasteboards the yellow silk liners with pockets front and back; preserved in a modern morocco case. Containing a 20th-century illustrated manuscript on parchment pasted in partly loose. This silver binding with painted enamel plaques belongs to a group of similarly decorated late 17th- or 18th-century miniature bindings. Several are on late 17th-century printed books or 18th-century manuscripts which have an Italian connection and although their style may have been imitated in various centers of book production it seems likely that most of the bindings were produced in Italy. I know of 15 such bindings including this one. Most are found on various late 17th-century editions of the Office of the Virgin printed in Paris from the 1670s to the early 1690s but including editions in Italian; these little Offices seem to have been produced at least in part for the Italian market. Two of the bindings were used for Hebrew manuscript prayerbooks produced in Italy. A census is available on request: it expands on that drawn up and kindly shared by Dr. Jan Storm van Leeuwen who published an earlier version in the catalogue of Patricia Pistner’s miniature book collection A Matter of Size no. 123. All but one of the bindings are miniature measuring approximately 82 x 55/58 mm. and are adorned with 12 to 20 cut-glass “jewels.” The silverwork is of two types: ten are filigree with spiraling volutes as in this binding and five are in a floral ajouré or openwork design with stems leaves and blossoms as in the Pistner example. The enamel plaques are also of two types not correlated with the two different silverwork types. The majority eleven show Christian religious figures with no inscriptions; these are in at least two different styles and were probably produced in different workshops. They are all found on editions of the Office of the Virgin printed between 1672 and 1693 all but one in Paris. Four bindings including this one have secular plaques painted in a rough folk-art style with putti and archaically spelled mottos relating to love. The other three bindings with secular motifs are the Pistner binding which is empty and two other filigree examples both bound over Jewish or Hebrew manuscripts: one is in a private Swiss collection and the other in which the plaque inscriptions are in Italian is held by Penn State University acquired from us. All four of these “secular” bindings have oddly shaped spines some slightly deformed. This seems to be the result of reworking the spines to accommodate thinner text blocks than those for which they were originally intended. The design of the catches and joints of the present binding and its filigree silverwork are similar to the other filigree secular bindings. The plaques especially resemble those of the example in the Swiss collection; one of the central plaques shares the same inscription here Rien m’arrest; in the other binding Rien m’arreste. However the fine condition and perfectly rounded spine of this binding may also point to some 19th-century restoration. Bookbindings of silver and previous metal were kept and reused through generations and thus often appear on much later books or manuscripts. This binding presently houses a 20th-century mildly erotic manuscript in French on 10 vellum leaves the title Cantique de Salomon in a crowned frame the 9 following leaves containing amateurish pencil and watercolor drawings with one- or two-line captions on rectos only. Originally glued in most of the leaves are now loose. The manuscript is disposed in the style of a Hebrew codex with the page order from left to right and the Hebrew transcription of the name of God YHWH appears at the top of the title. For examples of the analogous bindings see A Matter of Size: Miniature bindings and texts from the collection of Patricia J. Pistner 2019 no. 123 referring to 7 such bindings; F. Malaguzzi Collezioni del Museo civico d'arte antica di Torino: legature Turin 2011 no. 92; Luigi Mallé Smalti - Avori del Museo d’Arte Antico Turin 1969 pp. 113-114; G. Fletcher Judging a Book by its Cover: Bookbindings in the Collections of the Grolier Club NY 2023 no. 3.13; Musinsky Rare Books Catalogue 28 item 7; Patrick Olson NY Book Fair List 2024. unknown

Musinsky Rare Books, Inc. · Estados Unidos5500,00 US$≈ 4904,15 €

ROCOCO SILVER BINDINGBiblio.com

An embossed silver-gilt binding on a suite of 17th-century engravings of saints

1750ref. 4310The binding probably Augsburg 1750. Agenda-format binding size 155 x 78 x 24 mm. Contents: 143 small engravings all but the first 48-50 x 35-37 mm. the first mounted sideways measuring 50 x 97 mm. consisting of 11 engravings for each saint trimmed to borders and mounted on 78 leaves of wove paper. 18th-century German silver-gilt embossed binding regilt in the 19th century both covers with a large oval cartouche containing a scene of the Crucifixion on the upper cover and the Resurrection on lower cover both covers with cherubs within ornamental foliage at the four corners the pair at top holding a cartouche with a scene of the Entombment on upper cover and the Ascension on lower cover the pair at the foot holding laurel wreaths and flanking a winged angel’s head; spine with embossed flowers ribbons and foliate ornaments above and below a central scene of Moses with the brazen serpent at top a monogram of the letters CJ; two chased metal fore-edge clasps attaching on upper cover; lined in later 19th-century green watered silk edges gilt and gauffered. Housed in a folding cloth felt-lined folding case upper cover with morocco gilt label with Abbey’s named coat of arms; his paper shelf-mark label JA 2680 on lower cover. Provenance: unidentified monogram on binding; Major John Roland Abbey 1894-1969 bookplate on case; see Hayward Silver Bindings no. 17; Bernard Breslauer anonymous sale Sotheby’s 10 May 1985 “Silver and Enamel Bindings” lot 26 unsold. A stunning embossed silver-gilt binding almost certainly produced in Augsburg from the collection of Major Abbey. The binding dates from the “last phase of baroque and the fully developed rococo” Hayward the final culminating period of Augsburg craftsmanship in embossed silver. Describing this binding and two others from the collection Hayward wrote: “the most finely worked book-covers in the Abbey Collection date from the second quarter of the Eighteenth Century. The subjects are the familiar scenes from the life of Christ but treated even in the small compass of a book-cover with extraordinary dramatic force. The designs were probably derived from a contemporary illustrated Bible but their effectiveness is greatly enhanced by the relief in which they are rendered and by the strong contrasts of light and shade” p. 3. To accentuate the pathos the silversmith or designer chose to highlight minor characters: in the dramatic Crucifixion scene the most deeply embossed figures occupying the foreground are two soldiers throwing dice at the foot of the cross; similarly the centurion is the largest and most solid figure in the Resurrection scene on the lower cover. The binding encloses an album of 143 fine small unsigned 17th-century probably Flemish engravings of Franciscan saints neatly mounted on wove paper. The Antwerp engraver and print publisher Philips Galle had initiated the vogue for “Franciscan” prints with his series of engravings of the Life of St. Francis first produced before 1580 cf. Sellink pp. 129-131. The present suite contains 13 series each with 11 small engravings depicting a saint or group of saints as follows: St. Francis The 5 Martyred Saints the 7 Martyred Saints Anthony of Padua Bonaventura Ludovicus Episcopius Bernardino of Siena John of Capestrano Didacus Diego of Alcalá Clare of Assisi Elizabeth of Hungary S. Elizabeth vidua Louis of France and Elzear. With one exception John of Capestrano instead of St. Ivo of Brittany these were the saints chosen by Hendrik Sedulius guardian of the Antwerp Franciscans for his Imagines Sanctorum Francisci printed and illustrated by Philips Galle in 1602 but that quarto-format work only includes one large engraving per saint each accompanied by a page of text. The exact source of this more extensive small format suite remains to be identified. Each engraving has a caption citing a chapter number. Major John Roland Abbey assembled the largest English book collection of his generation. His first love was bindings and among these he brought together an exceptional group of silver bindings some of which were described and illustrated by John F. Hayward in an article published in The Connoisseur in 1952. The present binding is number 17; Hayward noted its earlier regilding as well as the “fine quality” of the embossing. Bernard Breslauer later bought the collection en bloc from Abbey’s widow “and in 1985 Bernard consigned the collection with some additions from his own stock to Sotheby’s London. Despite Sotheby’s well-illustrated and informative catalogue the sale was calamitous: of the fifty-eight silver and enamel bindings only fourteen met the reserve” Laird p. 67. This binding was not one of them. Cf. M. S. Sellink Philips Galle 1537-1612: engraver and print publisher in Haarlem and Antwerp PhD ThesisVrije Universiteit Amsterdam 1997 online. J. F. Hayward Silver Bindings from the J. R. Abbey Collection offprint from The Connoisseur October 1952. Cf. M. Laird “Bernd Bernard Hartmut Breslauer 1918-2004: A Personal Memoir” Gazette of the Grolier Club 72 2023 59-92. Thanks to Mr. Laird for sharing the sale results from B. Breslauer’s own catalogue in his possession. unknown

Musinsky Rare Books, Inc. · Estados Unidos12.000,00 US$≈ 10.699,96 €

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