15th Century Woman's Heart (And Soul) Won With Extravagant Book

Books have been given as tokens of love for centuries, even before the invention of printing. Illuminated books of hours like the one pictured above were precious objects commissioned from highly skilled artists and were often given as a wedding gift. This book of hours was created in the middle of the 15th century, and the fineness of its execution indicates that it was created by a top flight atelier. It was a great treasure from the time it was created, and has survived in near-perfect condition to this day because it has always been treated with great reverence.

There are hints that this particular book of hours was created especially for a beloved woman. The sequence of prayers to individual saints, called suffrages, here is unusual in that the female saints precede the males: texts in the codex for Mary Magdalene, St. Catherine, St. Anne, St. Susanna, and St. Margaret come before those for St. Christopher, All Saints, and St. Sebastian. This sequence (and the fact that the "Obsecro te" and the suffrage to St. Christopher are in the feminine form) suggest that the first owner of the manuscript was a woman.

Most books of hours have miniatures depicting significant events in the life of the Virgin Mary: the Annunciation, the Visitation, the Nativity, the Presentation in the temple, and her Coronation as Queen of Heaven. Other frequent subjects are the Crucifixion, Pentecost, some portrayal of a funeral to remind the devout of their mortality, and perhaps King David composing the Psalms. A books of hours commissioned for an individual might include a miniature of the owner's patron or name saint. This Book of Hours is unusual in that it contains the quite rare Suffrage to St. Susanna; not only is the text of this Suffrage present, but the person who commissioned the manuscript has chosen Susanna's story as the subject matter for one of the book's six large miniatures.

The scene, shown above, depicts the central moment in the Apocryphal Book of Daniel, showing the saintly woman being defended by the young Daniel against two elders who had falsely accused her of adultery after trying to seduce her. Depictions of the story of Susanna are quite rare--her story in in the Apocrypha, and she was not one of the female saints especially venerated in Medieval times, as Saints Margaret, Catherine, and Barbara were. The only likely reason for including the tale of this beautiful and virtuous wife is that the woman for whom is was intended was named Susanna or Suzanne.

The next token of love, created some 400 years later, was a 25th anniversary gift. In the mid-19th century, Parisian publishers issued a number of elaborately presented religious works with illustrations from several hands . . . Curmer's 'Les Saints Évangiles' [the Gospels] is the most attractive of the lot." (Ray) The present copy also has added lovely illuminations, a charming original watercolor, and an exquisite binding by one of the top Parisian binders, Leon Gruel.

The most unusual binding is done in a Neo-Gothic style, its dark green silk velvet covers mounted with delicately and elaborately carved boxwood frames after designs by Martin Riester. The front cover is adorned with the recipient's monogram, and the edges of the leaves are elaborately gauffered in a red and gold design.

According to the handsomely designed presentation page at the front, this beautiful object was assembled at the order of C. J. T. Tiby, and given to his "dear wife," Anaïs Duret Tiby on 2 June 1855, as a "Souvenir of 25 years of Happiness." In the accompanying watercolor of the wedding ceremony (shown below), which took place at midnight a quarter century earlier, we see a shy bride in white and a tall officer in uniform standing before a candlelit altar, surrounded by their families.

Mme. Tiby must have been a shining example of the perfect wife, as described in the Book of Proverbs and recalled in the presentation, for her husband certainly would have committed to a liberal expenditure in commissioning this painstakingly crafted edition of the Gospels.

Like the thoughtful wife described in last week's post, M. Tiby and the husband of the Medieval Suzanne chose not a piece of jewelry, which can be worn and displayed, to honor their beloved, but a book, which in addition to being an object of great beauty to be enjoyed (and yes, displayed) is also something with which one engages intellectually and emotionally--a feast for the mind and the heart, as well as for the eyes.

_____________________________

Images courtesy of Phillip J. Pirages Fine Books and Manuscripts.

My First Time, or I Lost It To A Fine Binding

A binding by Léon Gruel. 

Photo courtesy of Phillip J. Pirages Fine Books & Manuscripts

I have always loved books. However, when I say I have always loved books, I should more properly say I loved their contents—the stories, the pictures, the magical escape from the humdrum world. I never really thought about books as objects until I rather unexpectedly entered the rare book trade two years ago.

In July 2008, I came across an ad in the McMinnville News-Register seeking someone who could read Latin, French, and Italian (I had the first two) and could catalogue books (a skill I acquired in library school). And so I came to meet and work for Phillip J. Pirages, a book dealer who has been in the business for 30 years and who specializes in finely bound and beautifully printed works from all periods, as well as in medieval manuscript materials. I had never seen books like the ones I saw on that first tour of Phil’s office. 

I remember he had just acquired a pierced binding by Gruel.

I had no idea such things existed, and I had been haunting libraries all my life. Obviously, I just hadn’t stumbled into the right private libraries. The exquisite object had been created for a woman who collected fine bindings, philanthropist Grace Whitney Hoff (of the Whitney Museum Whitneys), and it contained a pretty edition of illustrated poems by another woman, Marie de Régnier, who wrote under the pseudonym Gérard d'Houville. The beautifully crafted piercing of the cover was backed by red and silver foil, which shone when the light hit it. I fell in love with fine bindings then and there. 


I learned that Mrs. Hoff commissioned this most unusual binding from one of the most famous and important French binders of the 19th and early 20th centuries. Bindings expert Sarah Prideaux, in her book "Bookbinders and their Craft," says that the Gruel firm, founded in 1811, "has always had the highest reputation . . . for initiative in artistic matters, as well as for irreproachable execution in the detail of its many-sided achievements." The business was managed by several family members over the years, and the list of binders who trained at the Gruel atelier is the most distinguished in Europe, but Léon Gruel (1841-1923), who took over the firm in 1891, was the single most famous person associated with it. He amassed a very fine collection of early bindings, which formed the basis for his widely used "Manuel Historique et Bibliographique de l'Amateur de Reliures" (1887). He was an authority on binding history at the same time that he was at the forefront in the movement pressing for the acceptance of revolutionary ideas in the decoration of modern bindings. 

(See more bindings by Gruel in the British Library Database of Bookbindings.)

Although the binding shown above is definitely Art Deco in feeling, it is also at least vaguely reminiscent of the 18th century Spanish bindings with mica elements, produced most notably by Antonio Sancha (1720-90), who studied with Derôme and became the outstanding Spanish binder of his day (see, for example, the Schiff Catalogue IV, 76). A similar Gruel binding (labeled as "really quite extraordinary" and priced at £7,500) appeared in George Bayntun's Catalogue #8 (1999), where it is described as being in pale leather punctuated with small gilt crosses, and featuring a prominent cut-away flower growing out of a small vase.

In that catalogue, the binding is also characterized as having 18th century connections, with decoration that "is almost identical to that on an 'Almanach Royal pour l'Anne 1766'" (signed by Bailly) which is illustrated by Gruel in his "Manuel de l'Amatueur de Reliures." Gruel comments, rightly, that the earlier binding--like the present one--is of a type almost never encountered, is a work that presents for the binder great technical difficulties, and is an object of the greatest interest and curiosity. (My thanks to Edward Bayntun-Coward and Phil Pirages for the information on Gruel bindings).

And so, on our first date, I fell hard for that binding, gave myself to it completely, with abandon, and have never looked back. I have come to realize that in books, as in gastronomy, presentation can be just as important as the contents/ingredients, and is something to be savored in itself. A fine binding is a marvelous thing to behold, a feast for the eyes, and nourishment for the soul.

Bon appetit!