Thursday, October 20, 2011

THE KING JAMES BIBLE, 1619, IN MAGNIFICENT SEVENTEENTH-CENTURY EMBROIDERED BINDING



Photo of Bible -  Holy Bible (in embroidered binding)magnify
Holy Bible (in embroidered binding) 
Cost: $16,000.00 
#79227
 
THE KING JAMES BIBLE, 1619, IN MAGNIFICENT SEVENTEENTH-CENTURY EMBROIDERED BINDING

(BIBLE) (BOOK ARTS)The Holy Bible, Containing the Old Testament and the NewLondon: Bonham Norton and John Bill, 1619. Thick 12mo, contemporary full white satin fully embroidered in colored silks and silver thread, all edges gilt and gauffered. Housed in a custom clamshell box.    $16,000.

Early edition of the King James Bible, bound with the Book of Common Prayer, Metrical Psalter and the Genealogies, which includes 34 pages of woodcut genealogies and a double-page woodcut map of the Holy Land (with an inset map of Jerusalem), in a splendid contemporary embroidered binding.

This early edition of the magisterial King James Bible, which was first published in 1611, has been lovingly bound in embroidered red satin. On both covers, a floral centerpiece in white, red, light green and dark green silks is surrounded by intricate silver thread work and smaller floral designs in blue, white and green. The spine is similarly adorned in floral designs of silver thread and multicolored silks. A roll border worked over with silver thread ornaments the outer edges. This highly decorative and unusual style of binding reached the height of its popularity and the pinnacle of its artistic development in the first half of the 17th century and is rarely found after the Restoration. The majority of such bindings were the work of professionals, members of the Guild of Embroiderers. Bible bound with an edition from the same year of Sternhold and Hopkins’ Metrical Psalter (bound after the New Testament), and with an edition from the same year of the Book of Common Prayer and the Genealogies (both bound before the Bible). With separate wood-engraved New Testament and Book of Common Prayer title pages. Includes Apocrypha. Text hand-ruled in red throughout. Darlow & Moule 287. Herbert 369. STC 2257. Early owner signature.

Interior exceptionally clean. A few signatures partially sprung, cords holding. Far less than the expected age-wear to beautiful and delicate embroidered binding; colors still bright and beautiful. A splendid volume.

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