Baskin -- Bookbindings
Title:
Baskin -- Bookbindings
Collection Items
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Ros rosarum: ex horto poet
English bookbinder Rosamond Philpott trained at Sangorski and Sutcliffe in 1904. Like many successful women binders, she exhibited on the Continent and in England and sold her work regularly. Her workshop, the Marygold Bindery, was in Cambridge. This wonderfully executed binding of maroon goatskin over boards is exuberantly arranged, utilizing leather onlay, and includes gold-tooled Tudor roses, foliage, flower buds, and stars. It is stamped on the turn-in of the lower cover: “Marygold Bindery, 1925.”Tags Bookbindings -
Echoes from Theocritus, and Other Sonnets
Scholar, lecturer and writer Sarah T. Prideaux was one of the first English women to make bookbinding a career. She taught binding and lectured on its history, amassing a significant collection of books, catalogues, and ephemera documenting the subject. In 1900, with Katharine Adams, she printed her Catalogue of Bookbindings (also in the collection) on her own hand press. This 1894 Prideaux binding is done entirely by her own hand in brown goatskin, blind and gold tooled. The design is of heart-shaped flowers on delicate stems. The spine titling is in her typical disposition of type, flush left.Tags Bookbindings -
Hamlet, Prince of Denmark
The Royal School of Art Needlework was founded in 1872 to create employment for women and to restore ornamental needlework to the significant place it once held among the decorative arts. The school did make embroidered bindings, but more frequently created painted vellum bindings. Blank vellum bindings were made by either Zaehnsdorf or Morrell’s trade binderies and were painted by the women workers at the Royal School of Art Needlework to be sold. The woman who painted this illuminated vellum binding is not identified, as was often the case for RSAN bindings. RSAN produced painted vellum bindings between 1888 and 1898. They are often fragile, and many do not survive. This exquisite example shows the art of interpreting scenes from the literary work within. The image on the front cover depicts Ophelia drowning with a quote from Act III, Scene 1.Tags Bookbindings -
The Christian Year
This copy of Keble’s Christian Year carries the ticket of the “Royal School of Art Needlework, Exhibition Road, South Kensington.” The RSAN was founded in 1872 to create employment for women and to restore ornamental needlework to the significant place it once held among the decorative arts. The school did make embroidered bindings, but more frequently created painted vellum bindings. Blank vellum bindings were made by either Zaehnsdorf or Morrell’s trade binderies and were painted by the women workers at the RSAN to be sold. The woman who painted this illuminated vellum binding is not identified, as was often the case for RSAN bindings. The school produced painted vellum bindings between 1888 and 1898. They are often fragile, sometimes incorporating delicate gilt covered gesso or gold as in the angel’s luminous halo. Many do not survive.Tags Bookbindings -
In Memoriam
Irish-born artist, muralist, bookbinder, embroiderer, enamelist, and designer Phoebe Anna Traquair was a stellar figure of the Arts and Crafts movement in Scotland. In the 1880s, Traquair developed an interest in medieval book illumination and corresponded with John Ruskin, who loaned her manuscripts from his personal library. In her illuminated In Memoriam, Traquair marries the influences of William Blake and medieval illumination. This manuscript provides evidence of the connections between the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood and the Arts and Crafts movement. Henry Cunynghame, who commissioned the manuscript, inscribed its story on one of the front end-leaves of the book, noting that he met Traquair through the artist William Holman Hunt, a prominent member of the Pre-Raphaelites. Cunynghame also recounts the history of Tennyson’s signature, noting that Tennyson was initially reluctant to sign, but after some time with the manuscript, he returned it with his name on the title page. Although Traquair previously completed other works of illumination, art historian Elizabeth Cumming describes In Memoriam as “[her] first true test of dedication to this craft.” -
Goblin Market
Laurence Housman’s illustrations of Christina Rossetti’s poem were engraved by his sister Clemence Housman. Both Housmans were socialists, writers, and artists. Together they founded the Suffrage Atelier and worked closely with the Women’s Social and Political Union. Gloria Cardew, whose label is on the front pastedown, was a prolific hand-colorist of book illustration, often working for the Guild of Women-Binders, as well as the Kelmscott and Vale Presses. Little is known of her. It is thought that her name is a pseudonym, though her photograph was published in the 1898 exhibition catalogue of the Guild of Women-Binders (also present in the collection). -
Of the Friendship of Amis and Amile
May Morris was an artist, embroiderer, designer, socialist, and suffragist. A daughter of Jane and William Morris, she lived much of her life at Kelmscott House, a major center of the Arts and Crafts movement in England. She managed the embroidery division of Morris and Company, founded by her father. In 1907 she co-founded the Women’s Guild of Arts in response to the exclusion of women from the Art Worker’s Guild. In 1909, while on a lecture tour of the United States, she met New York lawyer and collector John Quinn, with whom she had a short romantic relationship. She presented him with a Kelmscott edition of Amis and Amile, held in her own designed and hand-stitched silk pouch. The book was bound by Katharine Adams in gold-tooled green pigskin in 1894. Adams, her close childhood friend, trained as a binder under Sarah T. Prideaux and established the Eadburgha Bindery in Broadway, Worcestershire. -
An Imaginary Portrait
Emily Daniel was a printer, illuminator, and bookbinder. She rubricated and bound special copies of books printed by the Daniel Press, published with her husband Charles Henry Oliver Daniel. This volume, bound in vellum with silver clasps by Emily Daniel, has an all-over pattern of gilt fleurons, each with a red dot in its center on both the upper and lower covers. Emily Daniel’s original bill of sale dated 28 April 1903 is included with the volume.Tags Bookbindings -
Aucassin & Nicolete
The English bookbinder Sybil Pye taught herself to bind using Douglas Cockerell's Bookbinding and the Care of Books. She began binding around 1906 and worked mostly independently, although she consulted with fellow artists Charles Ricketts and T. Sturge Moore. Her highly original designs, a precursor of Art Deco, tended toward linear, architectural, and geometric features, and often employed onlays. Pye completed 174 bindings during her prolific career. She worked through 1955. This volume has a Pye binding of gold and blind-tooled red goatskin.Tags Bookbindings -
Sire Degrevaunt
Finnish artist Eva Sparre was known for her bookbinding, leatherwork, textiles, and furniture design. . She was a student of woodcarving and leatherwork at the Stockholm Technical School and taught leatherwork at Helsinki’s Central School of Applied Arts. In 1896, during a visit to England, she and her husband encountered the Arts and Crafts movement and determined to apply its ideals in Finland. Upon their return they founded the ceramics and furniture firm Iris Company in Porvoo. This fine example of Sparre’s work is in full cut and modeled calfskin. It is signed on the lower cover: Eva Sparre.Tags Bookbindings -
The Passionate Pilgrim & the Songs in Shakespeare's Plays
The Royal School of Art Needlework was founded in 1872 to create employment for women and to restore ornamental needlework to the significant place it once held among the decorative arts. The school did make embroidered bindings, but more frequently created painted vellum bindings. Blank vellum bindings were made by either Zaehnsdorf or Morrell’s trade binderies and were painted by the women workers at the Royal School of Art Needlework to be sold. Often the painted designs were of themes, characters, or scenes not at all related to the book’s text. The woman who painted this illuminated vellum binding is not identified, as was often the case for RSAN bindings. The school produced painted vellum bindings between 1888 and 1898. They are often fragile. This painted vellum binding is reminiscent of eighteenth-century crewelwork: Tudor roses and stylized carnations inhabit raised tree branches; flying (!) and grazing deer are three-dimensional, composed of gold leaf applied over gesso, as is the lettering. A paper ticket is present inside the lower cover: “Royal School of Art Needlework. Exhibition Road, South Kensington.” -
[Electrosilver Binding Commissioned by the Council of the Art Union London]
M. Lilian Simpson was a student at the Royal Academy when she created this electrosilver plate binding in 1894, for which she won the gold medal in the National Competition for Schools of Art. Simpson described her subject as a “Book of Life,” modeling the figure of Love in the center, surrounded by winged angels in each corner. She pierced and stamped the metal, unifying her design with flowers and pods of seeds. Love also appears on the clasp, “bind[ing] together the pages of the Book of Life.” She had intended the binding to cover a copy of Dante Gabriel Rossetti’s poems; however, the only two known copies are on blank-leaved albums. The British Library holds the other. This copy is bound in purple goatskin. Simpson died at twenty-six, just two years after completing this work.Tags Bookbindings -
Sonnets from the Portuguese
Annie S. Macdonald’s embossed designs, inspired by German monastic bindings, were traced and worked onto the undressed leather after it covered the boards. She invented this technique, describing her method in “Modelled Bookbindings,” published in Book-Lovers Magazine in 1907. The lower cover with its splendid winged angel incorporates her initials. The binding leather, originally an ivory color, has darkened with age. This binding was included in the Guild Exhibition at Karslake and Company (1898) and is listed in the catalogue. Macdonald inspired Frank Karslake to establish the Guild of Women Binders, and with Jessie R. MacGibbon, Phoebe Anna Traquair, and other craftswomen came together as the Edinburgh Arts and Crafts Club, meeting to discuss and exhibit their work.Tags Bookbindings -
The XII Books of Marcus Aurelius Antoninus the Emperor
Jessie R. MacGibbon was a member of the Guild of Women Binders. She worked this binding in natural undressed goatskin, depicting a unique image—her self-portrait. She is framed within the structure of her book press, needle in hand, sewing the gatherings of her book. Her initials are arranged in the top frame; below she states her profession, “Binder.”Tags Bookbindings -
Bookbinding by women : second Exhibition of Artistic Bookbinding by Women, including many very beautiful and original books suitable for Christmas presents, New Year gifts, wedding presents, etc. : also some examples from the Hampstead Bindery and the Sandringham Bindery
The Guild of Women-Binders was created in May 1898 by Frank Karslake at the suggestion of Annie Macdonald of the Edinburgh Social Union. Macdonald saw the Guild as a path into the London market for provincial women bookbinders. Karslake saw a business opportunity. It was originally an exhibition space for women’s bindings. In 1899 Karslake added a workshop to train women binders under the direction of his daughter Constance and binders from the Hampstead Bindery. This exhibition catalogue was the first produced for the Guild.Tags Bookbindings -
English Lyrics from Spenser to Milton
Alice Shepherd executed this elegant modeled or “embossed” binding after a design by H. Granville Fell. The gold tooling on calf is perfectly achieved, accomplished with the highest level of skill. Shepherd was in charge of the cut and modeled leather department at the Cedric Chivers bindery at Bath, which was comprised of women workers. She trained with Mary Ann Bassett, who taught leather work at the Heath in Leighton Buzzard. This binding was exhibited in 1904 at the St. Louis Exhibition. The original exhibition label is present.Tags Bookbindings -
Letters to E. Gordon Duff
Two letters from binder Sarah T. Prideaux to bibliographer and librarian E. Gordon Duff were tucked in to the first edition of Catalogue of Books Bound by S.T.Prideaux Between MDCCCXC and MDCCCC in the Lisa Unger Baskin Collection. In 1900 Prideaux sent this copy to Duff, along with the note “with her compliments” in her hand on her distinctive letterhead. Prideaux had printed the Catalogue with her friend Katharine Adams on the printing press at her house at 37 Norfolk Square. Prideaux corresponded extensively with Duff about her lectures on the history of bookbinding. Duff contributed a chapter on early stamped bindings to her book An Historical Sketch of Bookbinding, published in 1893. In the second letter, dated 23 September 1903, Prideaux requests Duff’s notes on another of her books, Bookbinders and their Craft. This volume brought together a selection of Prideaux’s previously published journal contributions on topics from English and Scottish bindings of the eighteenth century to early French and Italian bindings. She writes to Duff that “I much dislike the re-listing of ephemeral work, but I could not help it in this case & did what I could in the way of revision.”Tags Bookbindings -
In Memoriam
Scholar, lecturer and writer Sarah T. Prideaux was one of the first English women to make bookbinding a career. She taught binding and lectured on its history. Prideaux was inspired by Persian, Syrian, and Islamic motifs. Her designs were often stamped blind or with restrained use of gold, allowing the fine leather she selected to be visible. She designed all the bindings produced under her name, though from the mid-1890s she likely employed a finisher to execute her designs. Prideaux ceased bookbinding around 1906 but continued her work as a scholar, publishing Aquatint Engraving in 1909. The green goatskin binding for In Memorium has a triple panel design with stylized arabesques, leaves, stems, and buds tooled in gilt.Tags Bookbindings -
Songs from the Plays of Shakespeare
British bookbinder Gwladys Edwards trained at the Guild of Women-Binders during its last years. The Guild closed in 1904. Edwards continued binding until around 1916. This elaborate binding, completed for the Guild of Women-Binders, is richly and exuberantly designed and tooled by Edwards. She covers the background surrounding the stylized butterflies with gold-tooled solid dots. The motif is continued on the spine. She used the technique of leather onlay on the covers and richly applied gilt to the gauffered edges of the book.Tags Bookbindings -
[Cover art for vellucent binding]
Dorothy Carlton Smyth, one of the esteemed “Glasgow Girls,” taught design at the Glasgow School of Art along with Jessie M. King and Frances Macdonald. She was noted for her costume design and book decoration. Smyth also worked for Chivers’ bindery in Bath as a book designer and illuminator. She created this design for a vellucent binding for Tennyson’s Poetical Works. In this technique, the design is painted on the underside of transparent vellum. Smyth was appointed the first female director of the Glasgow School of Art in 1933, but died before taking up the post.
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