- About Bookbinding -
Bookbindings Old and New
Notes of a Book-Lover by Brander Matthews
Book Binders of the Late 1800's part 8
Nor was there a single specimen of Teutonic handiwork. Yet Trautz was a German by birth, and earlier in this century there were several German binders established in England Walther, Kalthoeber, Staggemeier. Even now, while one of the leading binders of London, Mr. Riviere, is of French descent, another, Mr. Zaehnsdorf, is of German. In New York many of the journeyman bookbinders are Germans. Not only was the bibliopegic art of Germany unrepresented at this recent exhibition in New York, but in none of the many recent books about binding, French, English, and American, do I find any attention paid to the work of the modern Germans. Several years ago M. Rouveyre of Paris, who had published half a dozen books about binding, arranged for a French edition of a collection of German bindings; and of "La Dorure sur Cuir (Reliure, Ciselure, Gaufrure) en Allemagne." Fifty copies were issued, the same publisher having risked fifteen hundred copies of M. Octave Uzanne's "La Reliure Moderne." From the well-made reproductions in this volume, it is fair to infer that the German binding of today is not remarkably interesting. It is sometimes dull and sometimes pretentious; it is frequently designed by architects who are without training in the needs and possibilities of its technic; it is often violently polychromatic; and it is sometimes set off by elaborate panels of inserted enamel, and by richly chiseled corners and centerpieces of silver. What is best is the artful employment of vigorous blind tooling; and what is most noteworthy is the successful revival of the medieval art of carving in leather, always best understood by the Germans.
