Modern bookbinding, their design and decoration by Prideaux Sarah Treverbian

Author:Prideaux, Sarah Treverbian
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Bookbinding
Publisher: London, A. Constable and Co.
Published: 1906-03-25T05:00:00+00:00

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MODERN FRENCH BINDING 69

every ten years, so as to get a periodic outlook on the art as a whole; but it is unlikely that the next few decades will show such marked characteristics of difference as may be seen by comparison of this collection with that even of 1892 organized by the Cercle de la Librairie. It may, in fact, be suggested that the evolution—or revolution, according to the point of view taken —now at its height, will probably produce a reaction towards that greater sobriety of treatment which distinguished the best work of the past. There are, indeed, already signs that the future of binding will not lie in that emancipation from all restrictions of form and material which would seem to be the ideal of some. Precisely what that future will be rests largely, no doubt, with the collectors, who are, as has been indicated, a powerful body in France, largely on the increase. It is they who, like MM. B&aldi, Spencer, Bordes, Villeboeuf, Roger, Marx, Claude Lafontaine, Baron de Claye, Louis Barthou, and many

70 MODERN FRENCH BINDING

others, not only furnish binders with the means of giving full play to their imagination, but often devote their pens with enthusiasm to introducing new efforts to the numerous body of amateurs who look to them for guidance in matters of taste and are ready enough to follow their initiative. The modern movement in binding may be said to have sprung out of the new form of book collecting which began about 1870. Up to that time the book-lover had confined himself entirely to eighteenth-century literature. For forty or fifty years there had been a mad rush in the salerooms for books of that period, which were then confided to Thouvenin, Simier, or Trautz, who had exercised their skill in marvellous imitations of the past, with an execution often more technically perfect than the originals. There came a time, however, when such works were exhausted —already stored away, that is to say, on the shelves of collectors, the few that occasionally appeared on the market being

MODERN FRENCH BINDING 71

only to be had at prohibitive prices. Book-buyers were thus faced with the problem of what was to be their next move. Obviously to create a new taste in books and establish a fresh motive for collecting was a necessity, and a few pioneers decided to set the fashion in illustrated books of the nineteenth century. L£on Conquet, whose reputation as a publisher is associated with the production of many fine works, at once rose to the occasion, and made a name first with his editions of the romantics of the nineteenth century, and then with original editions of contemporary authors. Clients for whom the old tastes had become too rare and costly an indulgence were thus provided with the means of gratifying a new enthusiasm.

In 1874 an association sprang up of about fifty-five collectors who called themselves 'Les amis des livres/ from which sprang the new departure which has had far-reaching results in book production.

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