 |
|
      |
 |
| Designer Bindings » Featured Titles For Sale | |
| |
||
Our Books: |
 |
Featured Titles:
Quarto. 124 pp. From an edition of 220 numbered copies printed at the Rampant Lions Press and signed by Christopher Frey and illustrator Charles Wadsworth, this is copy number two. Illustrated with twelve collograph intaglios by Wadsworth and bound in full brown morocco by David Bourbeau. Picking up on the visual theme of the frontispiece, which shows a tree and its roots against the night sky, Borbeau’s binding features a single rootlike cord in relief against a brown background, with a gold circle suspended above. Paste-paper endleaves in hues of blue tinged with gold and silver evoke the night sky to complement the cover design. A stunning binding for a handsome, modern book. Housed in a leather-backed cloth folding box, which repeats an element of the cover design. Very fine. (20757) $2,500.
124; 124; 124 pp. With an engraved frontispiece of Christ on the Cross. Text block bordered on two sides by engraed device of floral and animal motif. Two of the volumes beautifully bound in blue morocco with stips of red onlay to both boards, one in brown morocco with blue onlays. Boards and dentelles with intricate gilt-tooled decorations, spines ornamented with gilt floral device in four compartments; a fifth compartment lettered in gilt. Colored endpapers bearing decorative patterns printed in gold. Very fine. A.e.g. Housed in a black hardshell case fitted with a cloth-lined tray consiting of three compartments, one for each book, and a rope border; the underside of the box's cover is cloth lined as well, and padded. Box with a push-button clasp and thin gilt border to top cover. Some faint chipping to edges and corners of box, else a handsome accompaniment to these lovely volumes. (3 3/16 by 2; 81x50mm.). (21059) $1,250.
Quarto. 102 pp. + 378 plates. First edition. Ornamental half title and title page from wood engravings by Reynolds Stone, printed in terracotta. Illustrated with 377 plates reproducing significant examples of typography from Gutenberg to Bruce Rogers. In an Elizabeth Greenhill binding of slate-green oasis featuring red and black onlays forming the letters of the title, surrounded by gold tooling on the upper panel. The letters are then echoed by an outline in gilt. On the lower panel, the gilt outine of the letters are echoed in blind tooling. Title in gilt on spine, with three onlaid bands of black goatskin. Doublures and endleaves of plum-colored Japanese paper. Writing about Greenhill's work in an article originally published in the Book Collector, Dorothy Harrop points to certain trademark qualities inherent in her finished bindings, among which is "the constant high standard of her lettering." Harrop observes that "she has several very handsome bindings to her credit in which the title forms the sole or dominant element in the design." It can be said that this binding is among the most striking of these treatments. Although various dates are given for the completion of this work, the Catalogue Raisonné assigns the date of 1966 to it. It was around this time, early in 1966, that Greenhill's mother died, prompting an examination of the inscriptions on the copings in her family's plot, which she found to be badly eroded. This resulted in her decision to erect a single headstone of her own design, inscribed "in a good Roman alphabet." It is perhaps a consequence of these events that the lettering on the present binding assumes a sculptural dimensionality. It is a design style that she used only once again, four years later, on a copy of the Allen Press's Printing with a Hand-Press. This binding has had a single owner since it was completed for the collection of Lord Wardington, and it bears his booklabel on the rear pastedown. Greenhill met Wardington at the Foyles Art Gallery for the Guild of Contemporary Binders exhibit in 1963, and he became a regular patron of her work. In the Foreword he contributed to her Catalogue Raisonné, Wardington writes that what appealed to him about her work was the way "she maintained the high traditions of the craft while at the same time using exciting non-traditional designs." Her high level of craftsmanship and attention to detail meant that "her bindings still work perfectly as books should, opening well and handling comfortably." Greenhill was the first woman member of the Guild of Designer Bookbinders, having been elected in 1961. The Guild then became Designer Bookbinders, and each year they present an award for gilding given in honor of Greenhill, who is now an honorary member. This binding was featured in the Modern British Bookbinding exhibit, held by Designer Bookbinders in Brussels and the Hague in 1985. The display card and spec sheet are laid into the morocco-backed cloth folding case. (Catalogue Raisonné 37). (20995) $22,500.
Small octavo. viii, 524, (v) pp. A seventeenth century silver gilt, jewelled binding covering a French prayer book, which was placed into the binding at a later date. Very fine in a modern, velvet-lined dropback box. The Journée du Chrétien concerned the daily duties of Christians, including devotional prayers to saints and angels, and was similar in construction and function to a Book of Hours. This copy is exquisitely presented in a seventeenth century jewel-encrusted binding, both covers of which bear a filigree ornament in all four corners as well as, at the top, a crucifix in which Adam's skull appears at the feet of Christ to symbolize the cleansing of Adam's sin through Christ's blood. In the center of each cover is the imperial double eagle of the Holy Roman Empire, and below are a pair of hands clasping a heart. Both the covers and the spine are decorated with dozens of semiprecious stones including amethysts, garnets, simulated sapphires, and turquoise; the clasps are encrusted with similar jewels, as are the elongated head- and tailbands. The pastedowns are red velvet, endleaves blue silk. This is a truly remarkable binding of uncommon beauty, with all the stones present and firmly set, and only minor wear to the gilt. The book previously had been in the Hohenzollern collection exhibited at Frankfurt's Städel Museum in 1928, and more recently was owned by Cornelius Hauck, who had acquired it from the famed German bookseller Emil Offenbacher in the mid-1950s. The inside of the front endpaper bears Hauck's bookplate, and the stamp of "Stadtbibliothek" appears on the verso of the title page. (20974) $75,000.
Folio. (86) ff. One of 250 copies. Signed by the artist and designer, Thierry Despont. Text in French and in the English translation of Louise Varèse, the English set below the French on the page. Contains twenty-eight drawings by Despont, printed by offset lithography by Susan Medlicott. Type and printing by Michael and Winifred Bixler and Luke Pontifell. Printed on heavy, sumptous cotton rag paper. This copy is in a Sylvia Rennie binding of full blue calf with a design of seven stiff, curvilinear shapes of polished blue, black, and white calf mounted to the front cover as a sculptural element evoking waves and sails. The endpapers are reddish brown brushed suede, very heavy, and the top edge of the book is stained black, with subtle swirling patterns in the stain that pick up the theme of one of the illustrations. The spine letters are onlays of black leather, and this is repeated on the spine of the book's clamshell box, which is specially designed to house this sculptural binding. Sylvia Rennie was a student of Hugo Peller, the Swiss master binder, and her work has been shown in a one-woman show at Kroch and Brentano in Chicago, in the Guild of Book Workers travelling exhibitions, at the Minnesota Center for the Book Arts, and other universities and galleries. A very fine copy of an elegant production both inside and out. (22014) $9,500.
|
| |
||
