- About Bookbinding -
Bookbindings Old and New
Notes of a Book-Lover by Brander Matthews
Stamped Leather part 3
Vellum, which was once a favorite material with the old bookbinders, has gone out of use almost everywhere except in Italy. It was employed in covering the "Autobiography of Joseph Jefferson," for which Mr. George Wharton Edwards designed a rich and ingenious Renascence side-stamp to be embossed on the yielding leather. Vellum was also utilized by the Grolier Club to clothe its unequalled edition of the "Philobiblon," but in this case the only decoration was the seal of the good Bishop of Bury.
Here I come to the end of my notes on the art of commercial bookbinding, an art which, in this mechanic age, is perhaps most flourishing in this country of inventive mechanics. It is one of the most important forms of household art of decorative art. Properly understood, and intelligently practiced, it is capable of educating the taste even of the thoughtless, and of giving keen enjoyment to those who love books for their own sake. There needs no argument to prove that it is not an art to despise which has called forth the energy of M. Giacomelli and Jules Jacquemart, of Mr. William Morris and Mr. WaIter Crane, of Mr. E. A. Abbey, Mr. Elihu Vedder, and Mr. Howard Pyle, of Mr. Stanford White and Mrs. Whitman.