Western Manuscripts and Miniatures

Quarto. 22 vellum leaves including the colophon. Title-page with illuminated border in colors and gold with burnished gold letters and inset miniatures of Keats (with initials "A S" and the date 1928 written in white paint) and "La Belle Dame." Each text leaf with intricate three-quarter illuminated borders in rich blue, purple, green and pink with gold. 14 illuminated initials, FIVE VIGNETTE MINIATURES AND FOUR FULL-PAGE MINIATURES.

IN A SUPERB JEWELLED BINDING SIGNED BY RIVIERE & SONS. Terra cotta crushed morocco, upper cover with inlaid turquoise morocco border gilt, surrounding a wider inlaid green morocco border with gilt-tooled rose leaves and 22 white morocco inlaid flowers, each with a dark blue cabochon stone at center, surrounding a terra cotta border gilt-lettered with the first lines of Keats's "Endymion," surrounding a thin inlaid turquoise morocco border gilt surrounding a central inlaid green morocco panel with elaborate gilt foliation emanating from inlaid turquoise morocco hearts gilt in the corners, with numerous inlaid white morocco flowers gilt, all surrounding a central recessed medallion of turquoise morocco with gold metal "J K" set with 79 seed pearls, enclosed by an oval of green morocco gilt, this surrounded by a wider oval terra cotta morocco border inlaid with brown and green morocco rose branches gilt with 6 inlaid morocco roses, each with 5 red stones (presumably garnets) at the center, all outlined by turquoise strapwork borders with purple morocco hearts at the head and foot. Lower cover with wide inlaid turquoise morocco border gilt in a Greek key pattern set with 14 inlaid tan morocco palm fronds gilt, surrounding a central inlaid Greek vase of dark blue and tan morocco gilt. Spine in 6 compartments with 5 raised bands, gilt-lettered in 3, the rest framed in inlaid turquoise morocco and gilt-decorated. Pale gray morocco doublures elaborately gilt-tooled in a checkerboard motif, each containing a lyre or spray of flowers, all within inlaid terra cotta and turquoise morocco borders set with 36 small circles of inlaid tan morocco, ivory watered silk endleaves, edges gilt. In the original padded silk-lined black straight-grained morocco gilt box.

A UNIQUE ILLUMINATED MANUSCRIPT ON VELLUM IN A JEWELED BINDING BY RIVIERE & SONS WITH 137 JEWELS

A spectacularly bound early 20th-century hand-crafted book; a modern illuminated manuscript dating from the period after illuminator Alberto Sangorski began to work for Riviere. Around 1905, Alberto Sangorski, who had previously worked at a goldsmith's firm, becan creating illuminated manuscripts to be bound by his brother Francis's firm, Sangorski & Sutcliffe. In 1910, Alberto and Francis had a falling out, and Alberto went to work for the chief competitor of his brother's firm. An intense rivalry broke out between Riviere & Sons and Sangorski & Sutcliffe, and each firm began putting out intricately decorated bindings, which, according to Nixon, had "so much gold and color on the cover that the hue of the original leather could no longer be determined." Ratcliffe estimates that of these special bindings "no more than 300 were ever produced."

The smaller miniatures in the present copy depict a knight leading La Belle Dame on horseback, the Acropolis, a woodland path, Psyche lying naked on her bed, and Cupid with PSyche. The full-page miniatures show a knight in full armor, the POrch of the Caryatids at the Greek temple of Erechtheion, a Greek urn, and Psyche with peacocks. Ratcliffe, Jewelled Bookbindings and Illuminated Manuscripts, a Checklist, no. 230.