The British Bindings in the Henry Davis Gift

THE BRITISH BINDINGS IN THE HENRY DAVIS GIFT

MIRJAM M. FOOT

WHEN Henry Davis, C.B.E. died on io January 1977 the majority of his magnificent collection of bookbindings joined those already on exhibition in the British Library. The Gift, which comprises approximately 800 decorated bookbindings and 260 reference books is too extensive and too varied to receive proper justice in a series of articles, but while a full-dress catalogue is in preparation, a few high spots may be worth a preliminary airing. The earliest of the Enghsh bindings comes from Fountains Abbey in Yorkshire and covers a 'Liber Ezechialis' written there in the latter part ofthe twelfth century. It is made of white whittawed skin over wooden boards and has a brass clasp on a long leather thong which fastens almost in the centre of the lower cover. A thirteenth-century manuscript 'Biblia Sacra' was bound in Canterbury c. 1470 by John Kemsyn^ and a London binding of c. 1475 by the Scales binder covers Jean Charlier de Gerson, De passionibus animae [and other works], [Cologne]: Ulrich Zell [and others], [r. 1470-3] and is illustrated here (fig. i). It shows a different design on each cover, built up of small tools among which is a pelican in her piety depicted twice on one stamp and by herself on another. The initials r s, cut in the leather, are probably those of the original owner. A blind-tooled brown calf binding on Vocabularius utriusque iuris (Basel: N. Kessler, 1488) was made in Cam- bridge in the late fifteenth century and is signed W G and one other late-fifteenth- century binding was made in London by Henry Cony, whose name is hidden in a stamp showing a rabbit and the initials h c.^ It covers Publius Virgilius Maro, Opera (Nurem- berg: A. Koberger, 1492). The sixteenth century starts with a binding on Thordynary ofChrysten Man (London: W. de Worde, 1506), made by the binder who worked for Wynkyn de Worde after he moved to Fleet Street. It is decorated with bHnd panels, showing the Mass of St. Gregory on the upper cover and St. Barbara on the lower. When Wynkyn de Worde was still at Westminster he used the binder who worked for Wilham Caxton and an example of his work covers Eusebius, Historia ecclesiasttca (Hagenau: H. Gran, 1506).^ English bindings ofthe first half of the sixteenth century are most commonly decorated in blind either with rolls or with panels. A number of these come from known shops, such as a 151 o Paris Bible with a panel depicting two entwined dragons, signed Pierre Auctorre 4 There are four bindings made in the 1520s and 1530s by the London publisher and book- binder John Reynes, tooled either with his signed roll or with various panels; two signed

114 Fig. I. Jean Charlier de Gerson, De passionibus animae [and other works], [Cologne, c. 1470-3.] 225 X 150X50 ram. Bound by the Scales binder panel-stamped bindings ofthe 1540s by Martin Dature and various panels with initials, such as a rose panel and an Annunciation panel signed A H and used c. 1515, another rose panel and one with the English royal arms signed H I on a binding of c. 1530, and panels with the initials M E and depicting St. Paul, used at about the same time. A Cambridge panel-stamped binding of c. 1523 comes from the shop of Garrett Godfrey and one decorated with rolls was made c. 1535 by Nicholas Spierinck. Gerard Pilgrim of Oxford bound a 1535 Cologne Clichtoveus and his townsman GK used a signed roll about twenty years later on a 1516 Paris Missal. The gold-tooled bindings ofthe century are more obviously appealing. A fine example made c. 1550 by the Medallion binder for King Edward VI covers a Bible in Greek (Basel, 1545)5 and the King Edward and Queen Mary binder bound Vittoria Colonna, Rime spirituali (Venice, 1548) and two other works, printed in Venice in 1531 and 1544, together for William Bill^ at the time that he was Master of St. John's College, Cambridge and one of King Edward VI's itinerary chaplains. Queen Mary disapproved of Bill's dedicated Protestantism, but Queen Elizabeth installed him as Dean of Westminster shortly before his death in 1561. The same binder bound Actes Made in the Parliament (London, 1554) for Queen Mary,*^ and her successor's arms and portrait occur on [Elizabeth I], 'Royal Charter of Confirmation in favour ofthe town of Dunwich', MS. [c. 1575] bound by the Huguenot immigrant Jean de Planche (fig. 2). As well as the corner pieces used on this binding he possessed a set of signed corner blocks and the various hatched tools he used give his work a distinctly French look. Queen Elizabeth's favourite, Robert Dudley, Earl of Leicester, owned several bindings now in the Davis Gift, all but one of which have his badge of a bear and a ragged staff in the centre. One of these was made c. 1577 of brown calf, with gold-blocked corners signed E D, over a sunk panel of punched purple velvet,^ a striking combination, which is also found on a Nouveau Testament (Lyons, 1564) and Pseaumes [and] Kalendrier (Geneva, 15^5) bound dos-d-dos by the MacDurnan Gospels binder.*^ This binder, who started work in London in the 1560s, bound for Queen Elizabeth, Archbishop Matthew Parker, Robert Dudley, William Cecil Lord Burghley, and others from the fashionable ranks of Elizabethan society, and his successor John Bateman became royal binder to James I in 1604. He bound The Statutes and Ordinaunces ofthe . . . Order of. . .ye Garter, MS. [1616] for Robert Sidney, Viscount Lisle. It is well known that Archbishop Matthew Parker had a bindery working for him at Lambeth Palace. One of the products of this shop covers John Caius, De antiquitate Cantebrigiensis academiae and two other works, printed by John Day in 1574. This binder remained active after Arch- bishop Parker died in 1575 and some of his tools turn up as late as 1642 on five works by H. Hexham, printed in Delft and The Hague between 1614 and 1642. There are a number of very pretty embroidered bindings from the end ofthe sixteenth and the beginning ofthe seventeenth centuries. A canvas binding embroidered with gold and silver threads and coloured silks was made for Henry, Lord Norreys of Rycote and his wife Margaret and has their arms on the covers. A red velvet binding embroidered with silver thread covers a 1603 Dort New Testament and has the initials of Queen Elizabeth (fig. 3^). A folio Bible and Prayer Book (London, 1611) was lavishly embroidered to

116 Fig. 2. Dunwich Charter [MS. c.1575.] 292X202X20 mm. Bound by Jean de Planche

117 X

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bO ort . a pattern of vines, flowers, and angels for James Montague, Bishop of Bath and

Later seventeenth-century embroidered bindings show the figures of Peace and Plenty on W. Camden's Britain (London, 1610); the figures of Taste and Sight on The Whole Booke of Davids Psalmes (London, 1628) (fig. 3^); King David on a 1635 London Psalter and an admonition to 'be wise as serpents and innocent as doves' on Samuel Smith, David's Repentance (London, 1637)." Some fine floral designs include one embroidered in gold and silver threads and coloured silks on purple satin made c. 1630 for John Daven- ant, Bishop of Salisbury, covering Biblia Sacra (London, 1585) [and] Psalmes (London, 1587),'^ and one embroidered in silver on red velvet on a 1632 London New Testament, bound dos-d-dos with a 1633 London Psalter. Velvet bindings could be tooled in gold like leather, and a binder who practised this technique several times was Daniel Boyse who worked in Cambridge from c. 1616 until 1630. He bound a 1629 Cambridge Bible and Prayer Book in gold-tooled blue velvet,^^ and a gold- and silver-tooled and red-painted brown goatskin binding covers E. Spenser, The Faerie Queene [and other works] (London, i6o9-ii-i2).^4 \ very attractive Cambridge binding of about thirty years later made of black goatskin, onlaid in red and citron and tooled in gold with tools very similar to those used by John Houlden, covers F. Quarles, Devine Poems [and] Emblemes (London, 1643). The 1660S herald the 'golden age of English bookbinding' and no major collection of bindings would be complete without a fair display of Restoration treasures. The Gift contains five bindings by Samuel Mearne. A 1659 Cambridge Bible in gold- and blind- tooled olive-brown goatskin, onlaid in various colours and decorated with paint, was probably together with its companion Prayer Book, now in the Broxbourne Library, supplied for use in the Chapel Royal in 1666;'^ a gold- and blind-tooled Book of Common Prayer (London, 1662), decorated with silver paint and with a fore-edge painting, underneath the gold, of the Crucifixion, was probably supplied for use in one of the royal chapels in the same year;'^ a red goatskin binding of a more simple design, tooled in gold with the cypher of Charles II, covers A. A. Barba, The Art of Mettals (London, 1670); a Common Prayer ofthe same year, also bound in red goatskin, has the cyphers of Charles II and James II as Duke of York ;'^ and Bacon's Essays (London, 1680) is in gold- and blind- tooled dark brown goatskin. Mearne's contemporaries and successors are equally well represented. Charles Mearne bound T. Browne, Certain Miscellany Tracts (London, 1683)'^ in red goatskin onlaid in black and tooled in gold to a cottage-roof design. A gold- tooled black goatskin binding of 1672 is signed on the fore-edge 'Owen fecit' and covers a 1671 London Holy Bible [and] 1669 Whole Book of Psalms,^"^ and a blind-tooled black goatskin binding by the Sombre binder on a Holy Bible (London, 1660) [and] Psalms in Metre (London, 1661) has in the centre the initials M M and the date 1673.^*^ The Queens' binder A, who has been tentatively identified as William Nott, was responsible for four bindings in the Gift, one of which, a two-volume R. Cudworth, The Intellectual System of the Universe (London, 1678) [and] A Discourse Concerning . . . the Lords Supper (London, 1676) in gold-tooled red goatskin, is illustrated here (fi%. 4). Queens' binder D used small tools and drawer handles on two gold-tooled brown goatskin bindings, one covering a 1624

119 Fig. 4. R. Cudworth, The Intellectual System ofthe Universe (London, 1678). 317X201 X 45 mm. Bound by Queens' binder A {} William Nott)

120 Leiden New Testament in Greek,^' the other Philippe de Comines's History (London, 1674)." The Naval binder bound a manuscript Dimentions and Burthen of his Maf Ships, [c. 1681] for Samuel Pepys in gold-tooled red goatskin^^ and Richard Bailey, 'bred under the tuition of Suckerman at Mr. Merne's' and renowned for his so-called backless bindings, made the attractive black goatskin binding, onlaid in cream and red and tooled in gold, illustrated here (fig. 5^). It covers H. Waring, The Rule of Charity (London, 1690). Other late-seventeenth-century bindings include work by the Devotional binder and his imitator, by the Small Carnation binder, by the Centre-Rectangle binder, and by the binder of Elizabeth Dickinson. Roger Bartlett, who settled in Oxford after the Great Fire of London, bound Comber's Companion to the Altar (London, 1678) there in a delightful gold-tooled red goatskin binding^ and Alexander Cleeve signed a leather strip above the turn-in of the lower cover of the gold-tooled black goatskin binding on The Holy Bible (Cambridge, 1663) [and] The Book of Common Prayer, [and] Psalms in Metre (Cambridge, i666).^5 One of Samuel Mearne's apprentices and probably his successor was Robert Steele. He bound A. Horneck, The Crucified Jesus (London, 1700) in dark blue goatskin tooled in gold to a cottage-roof design. Another cottage roof decorates a 1701 Oxford Bible bound by Richard Sedgley. The Geometrical Compartment binder, who worked in London in the beginning of the eighteenth century and who favoured geometrical patterns based on the French fanfare style, bound Jeremy Taylor's Dissuasive from Popery (London, 1686)^^ and L. Eachard, A General Ecclesiastical History (London, 1702). Another late imitation ofthe fanfare style was used to create a mosaic effect in red goatskin with black and citron onlays on De Royaumont, History of The Old Testament (London, 1701). The Oxford binder who worked for Lord Kingsale achieved this same effect c. 1720 on a 1717 London Book of Common Prayer .^'^ Elkanah Settle, the City poet, bound his own Eusebia Triumphans (London, 1702-3) for Sir Charles Duncombe in gold-tooled black goatskin with Sir Charles's arms. John Brindley, binder to Queen Caroline and to Frederick, Prince of Wales, used his characteristic tool of a pair of crowned dolphins within circular wreaths on the three volumes of G. Trissino, La Italia Liber at a da Got hi (Rome/Venice, 1547-8). An English heraldic manuscript on vellum of the first quarter ofthe seventeenth century belonged to Maurice Johnson, the founder ofthe Gentlemen's Society of Spalding, and was bound for him c. 1751 by Christopher Norris who lived near St. Paul's. As well as London and Oxford, Cambridge remained an important centre of bookbinding. Ed Moore, who is mentioned in the accounts of various Cambridge colleges from the 1740S until the late 1760s, bound the two-volume edition of Pine's Horace (1733-7) and a 1760 Baskerville Common Prayer, decorating them with his characteristic floral rolls and concave diamond centre pieces built up of small solid and floral tools. Another Baskerville Common Prayer of a year later was bound c. 1761 by Andreas Linde, a German immigrant binder who worked for George III while he was Prince of Wales, and decorated with birds, trumpet-blowing angels, and feathers around a Paschal lamb.^^ There are bindings for Thomas Hollis and Jonas Hanway and a very nice rococo binding in red goatskin for Philip Stanhope, fifth Earl of Chesterfield, covering a 1776 Oxford Prayer

121 -si

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bc c Book and a 1768 Oxford Psalter.^o Richard Dymott, who worked as a bookseller and a binder in London in the 1760s, 1770s, and 1780s, bound L. Ariosto, Orlando Furioso (Venice, 1584) in red goatskin, inlaid in yellow-brown marbled calf and tooled in gold (fv^. Sb). The Gift contains four bindings from the hands of the much-praised and much- derided Roger Payne. A set of small but very attractive olive goatskin bindings covers a 1644-5 Leiden Livy in three volumes^" and a 1636 Leiden Virgil is in red goatskin decorated with floral garlands. Payne bound c. 1796 W. Dugdale's History of Imbanking and Drayning of Divers Fenns and Marshes (London, 1662) in gold-tooled brown Russia for Sir Richard Colt Hoare,^' and R. Sanders, Physiognomie and Chiromancie (London, 1670-1) for Dr. Moseley,^^ his physician. Payne's original bill of 19 August 1795, in which he set out in great detail the trouble he took to wash, mend, and bind the book and which amounts to 175. bd. 'as per Agreement', is preserved with the book. Another well-known name in eighteenth-century bookbinding is that of Edwards of Halifax. This firm bound a 1762 Baskerville Prayer Book and Psalter in the early 1780s which shows the Resurrection and the Crucifixion painted on the underside of the transparent vellum." The fore-edge has a landscape painted underneath the gold. Thomas Littleton's Tenures, [c. 1599] was bound in 1793 for the Chadwick family. The German immigrant binders who flourished in London in the second half of the eighteenth century are well represented. Baumgarten bound c. 1775-80 a collection of engravings with a manuscript index in gold-tooled blue goatskin ;3'^ Kalthoeber bound J. Diettenhofer, Sonatas for the Pianoforte with ... Violin (London, 1781), in red goatskin, tooled in gold with decorative borders and a pair of mermaids ;^^5 Henry Walther bound in 1791 Novelle Otto (London, 1790) in citron goatskin, onlaid in dark blue and red and tooled in gold to a pattern reminiscent of Moorish tiles ;3^ and Staggemeier and Welcher are responsible for a dignified Neo-classical binding in green goatskin, onlaid in blue, citron, and red and tooled in gold, made in the 1790s to cover Birch's Heads... of Illustrious Persons . . . Engraven by Houbraken and Vertue (London, 1756).^^ Charles Hering who worked in London from 1799 and who died in 1815 bound [T. Malory], Most Ancient ... History of. . .Arthur King ofBritaine (London, 1634) and decorated it with small tools reminiscent of those used by Roger Payne, and another member of the Hering family used a rococo design c. 1840 on a red goatskin binding with the arms of Hope. A nice masonic binding off. 1812 by John Lovejoy covers W. Preston, Illustrations of Masonry (London, 1812) and there are two bindings by Thomas Gosden, one on the 1810 London edition of Izaak Walton's Compleat Angler,^^ the other on Zouch's Life of Izaac Walton (London, 1823), which is signed: 'Bound by T. Gosden, 107 St. Martins lane'. A binding decorated with the well-known 'sportsman's buttons', commissioned by Gosden from designs by Abraham Cooper, covers the engravings of the buttons by John Scott issued in 1821. It has the ticket of Lloyd, Bookseller and Binder, 36 Chandos Street, Strand, and is illustrated here (fig. 6). Signed bindings of the nineteenth century include work by C. Smith, Dawson and Lewis, Westley, Hayday, and Zaehnsdorf. The founder member of this last firm left Vienna in 1836, travelled in Switzerland and France, and reached London in 1837. He started 123 Fig. 6. Impressions from a Set of Silver Buttons^ drawn by A. Cooper (London, 1821). 242 X 162 X 12 mm. Bound by Lloyd

124 business on his own in 1842 and bound an 1836 Bible in German in black calf blocked in blind with an engraving of York Minster.-^^ There are four gay-looking bindings of the 1890S decorated by Sir Edward Sullivan, in elaborately tooled and onlaid goatskin, and five bindings designed by Cobden Sanderson. The earliest of these, signed and dated 1890, he bound himself"*^ but the other four were bound at the Doves bindery, which he established in 1893. Charles Ricketts designed the binding for M. Field, Fair Rosamund (London, 1897), which was executed by Riviere and Son. In a recent article in the Designer Bookbinders Review (1977), I described the twentieth- century bindings of this collection and it should suffice to mention here that these include work from the Hampstead bindery; three bindings by Katherine Adams, one of which, a large heavy two-volume Don Quixote which she bound at the age of eighty-five, was her last work; two bindings by Sybil Pye and a so-called Cosway binding by Bayntun of Bath in brown goatskin with onlaid purple violets and with a miniature of Charles Dickens painted under mica in a sunk medallion in the centre. Post-war years brought work by Trevor Jones, Arthur Last, E. P. Womersley, Jeff Clements, Philip Smith, Arthur Johnson, Elizabeth Greenhill, and William Anthony. The last binding Henry Davis acquired was a copy of the Spring number of The Book Collector, for 1975, dedicated to Howard M. Nixon, bound by Bernard Middleton in blind-tooled black goatskin with green and red onlays and gold tooling. The Irish and Scottish bindings in the Gift date from the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. As well as some characteristic Scottish fan and herringbone bindings there is a copy of Robert Douglas, Peerage of Scotland (Edinburgh, 1764) in a very nice gold-tooled blue goatskin binding,'^^ which was given to John Alexander, Episcopal Bishop of Dunkeld, by the grateful family of Clackmanan 'for his discoveries in councehng the family as chieftains of the name'. Two books were bound by Scott of Edinburgh: Robert Fergusson's Poems (Edinburgh, 1773) in gold-tooled marbled calf and a two-volume Holy Bible (Cambridge, 1775) [and] The Psalms of David (Edinburgh, 1758) in red goatskin showing John the Baptist amidst curving tools."*^ R. Forsyth's juridical thesis of 1792 in a gold-tooled red goatskin presentation binding is illustrated here (fig. 7). From Dublin come a 1745 Dublin edition of Virgil, bound by the Parliamentary binder A; three volumes of C. Smith, The ... State of the County and City of Cork (Dublin, 1750) [and] The . . . State of the County and City ofWaterford (Dublin, 1746), uniformly bound in gold-tooled red goatskin \'^^ and M. H. Vida, The Silkworm [and] Scacchia Ludus (Dublin, 1750)^ bound by the College binder. The ten-volume set of Irish Statutes printed in Dublin between 1765 and 1782 in gold-tooled red goatskin bindings for William Henry Cavendish Bentinck, third Duke of Portland, now belongs to Henry Davis's other main beneficiary, the New University of Ulster at Coleraine. The same binder, however, bound other sets of Irish Statutes and two odd volumes, belonging to different sets, were bound by him and are now in the British Library. Volume X (Dublin, 1782), in gold-tooled red goatskin with a white paper onlay in the centre, is illustrated here (fig. 8).

125 Fig. 7- R. Forsyth, [Juridical thesis] (Edinburgh, 1792). 245X184X10 mm. Con- temporary Scottish binding

126 Fig. 8. Irish Statutes^ vol. X (Dublin, 1782). 368x233x85 mm. Contemporary Irish binding

127 1 M. M. Romme, 'Contemporary Collectors XLIV, 19 Ibid., pi. 78. The Henry Davis Collection 1', The Book Col- 20 Ibid., pi. 113. lector (Spring, 1969), pi, VII, 21 Ibid., pi. 76. 2 G. D. Hobson, English Bindings . .. in lhe Library 22 Ibid., pi. 77. ofj. R. Abbey (London, 1940), pi. i. (Quoted as: 23 Ibid., pi. 80. Hobson, Abbey.) 24 Ibid., pi. 121. 3 William Caxton, An Exhibition ... British Library 25 Ibid., pi. 105. (London, 1976), n. 109 (pi.)- 26 Sotheby's, 17.VII.1944, 2/5 (pi.). 4 E. P. Goldschmidt, Gothic and Renaissance Book- 27 Sotheby's, 21.VI.1965, 222 (pi.). bindings (London, 1928), pi. XLI. 28 A. R. A. Hobson and A. N. L. Munby, 'Con- 5 H, M, Nixon, Twelve Books in Fine Bindings from temporary Collectors XXVI, John Roland the Library of J. W. Hely-Hutchinson (London, Abbey', The Book Collector (Spring, 1961), 1953), pL I. (Quoted as: Nixon, Twelve Books.) pi. XII. 6 Sotheby's, 13,VI. 1955, 752 (pi.). 29 Maggs Catalogue 830 (i955)> ^33 (pl-)- 7 Sotheby's, 19.VI.1967,1592 (pi.). 30 Sotheby's, 13.III.1956, ^oj (pi.). 8 W. E. Moss, Bindings from the Library of Robert 31 Sotheby's, 17.X.1960, 572 (pi). Dudley Earl of Leicester (Manor House Press, 32 S. de Ricci, British Signed Bindings in the 1934), pi, 14- M. L. Schiff Collection (New York, 1935), pi 10. 9 M. M. Romme, op. cit., pi. VIII. 33 Sotheby's, 17.X.i960, 759 (pi). 10 Sotheby's, 24.III.1942, 402 (pi.). 34 Sotheby's, 23.VI. 1965, sHiV^)- 11 Hobson, .4Mf^, pi, 34. 35 C. J. Sawyer, Catalogue 242 (1957), 61 (pi). 12 Burlington Fine Arts Club, Exhibition of Book- 36 Nixon, Twelve Books., pi. XIV. bindings (London, 1891), pi, CXIII. 37 Sotheby's, 22.VI.1965, 393 (pi.). 13 Sotheby's, 15.X.1945, 7927 (pi). 38 Hobson, Abbey, pi 107. 14 M. M, Romme, op. cit., pi. IX. 39 Sotheby's, 12.III.1956, 91 (pi). 15 H. M. Nixon, English Restoration Bookbindings 40 Hobson, Abbey, pi 117. (London, 1974), pi. 25, (Quoted as: Nixon, 41 Sotheby's, 12.III.1962, 529 (pi). Restoration.) 42 Breslauer, Catalogue 92 (i960), 95 (pi). 16 Nixon, Restoration^ pi. 29. 43 M. Craig, Irish Bookbindings 1600-1800 (London, 17 G. D. Hobson, Thirty Bindings (London, 1926), 1954), Pl- 27- pi. XXIII. 44 Sotheby's, 14.III.1956, 6/5 (pl). 18 Nixon, Restoration, pi. 34.

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