Some Oriental Bindings in the Chester Beatty Library.

Descripción

Cloth, gilt cover-titles, folio, 31 cm, 29 pp, 71 plates (21 in colour). From the introduction: "The oriental bindings of the Chester Beatty Library can be divided into three large sections: Christian bindings of the near East (plates 1 to 14), Islamic bindings (plates 15 to 53) and the bindings of non-Islamic Asia (plates 54 to 70). Early Christian binding shows the very beginning of the art and the first stages of the development of its technique. This technique and the decoration which went with it soon spread through the whole Eastern Mediterranean basin. The earliest known bindings came from Egypt, though it is not quite certain that the craft originated in this country. Ethiopic bindings also belong to the group of Christian bindings of the Near East. . Islamic bindings include those from Egypt, Persia, Turkey, India and countries of North and West Africa. The collection of Islamic Bindings in the Chester Beatty Library is so rich that the difficulty was to decide what to omit. All the different kinds of Islamic bindings are well represented. The bindings of non-Islamic Asia are represented by fine examples of Tibetan, Nepalese, Burmese, Mongolian, Siamese, Sinhalese and Batak work. There are only a few bindings from China and Japan but they are exceedingly rare and luxurious. The books from all these areas were generally made of single leaves laid on one another, but there are also many examples of parapaik books made from one long sheet folded accordion-wise. There is the palm-leaf book, the paper book and the book made from the bark of certain trees. The palm-leaves were prepared with such care that they are rigid without being brittle; some are lacquered and look as it they were made of copper, but there are also books really made of copper leaves, also lacquered, so that their weight alone indicates their composition. Examples of all these kinds of books with their special bindings, will be found in Plates 54 to 70." Bookplate on front pastedown endpaper, corners a trifle bumped otherwise Very Good. N° de ref. del artículo ABE-46571

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