BOOKBINDING TERMS

MOROCCO LEATHER
A vegetable-tanned goatskin leather used in the finest bindings; produced in and procured from North Africa.

CORNERPIECE
A design element conforming to the corners of a binding, often matching the centerpiece or other decorative elements.

FLEURON
A stylized flower or leaf motif.

DENTELLE
A fine, decorative lacelike border that draws the eye to the center of a binding; created through a buildup of small tool impressions. 

ARMORIAL
A heraldic decoration indicating ownership or affiliation; located centrally on a binding, it functions as the centerpiece. 

CENTERPIECE
A design placed at the center of a binding.

POINTILLÉ
A series of small, hand-tooled dots. 

LOZENGE
A diamond-shaped decoration. 

FILLET
A plain, straight line or series of lines, usually around the outer edges of a cover. 

Nicolas-Denis Derome (1731–1790), binding of green morocco, with gilt tooling and armorial, on Tarif des droits d’aides et autres y jointes, 1771. The Morgan Library & Museum; MA 23394.

On the bindings at left and center, the binder had to take into account the size of the armorial when producing the dentelle. The two elements are not meant to compete but should instead form a single, cohesive composition. An ill-fitting armorial is a sign of poor planning or perhaps a later addition—as in the remboîtage, or repurposed binding, at right. This binding was removed from an unknown book, added on to a nineteenth-century text, then tooled with a large armorial that dominates and disrupts the initial, harmonious design. Hidden in each corner of the dentelle is an oiseau, or bird, the signature tool of the renowned original binder, Nicolas-Denis Derome.

The bindings displayed here are examples of intricate, well-planned design work. Decorative borders are symmetrical and necessitate detailed measurements and exacting tooling to ensure a balanced composition. The bindings have deep dentelles that both encroach upon and highlight the clean expanse of red morocco. Interstitial areas between fleurons and leaves are filled with pointillé and lozenge tools to create a more sumptuous design.

The mastery of gold leaf is but one skill in the binder’s decorative repertoire. Mosaic binding is another, more exacting finishing method. The inlay mosaic technique (seen on the first three bindings) involves cutting out a figural shape from the covering leather, then replacing it with an alternate piece of the same size and thickness but a contrasting color or grain. In the onlay technique, the contrasting leather pieces are laid over the covering leather, appearing in relief. Both methods can create elaborate decorative or narrative scenes.

The painted leather armorial is another decorative option, as seen on the fourth binding. The fifth binding combines cutout leather and gold and silver foil on a background of red foil. Sheets of mica, a clear silica material, protect the exposed painted areas and reflective foil.

This is one part of a larger composition for a decorative frame, engraved in 1642 but never printed. The drawing represents the left side of the frame, which features a caryatid, a draped female figure symbolizing peace and abundance, supporting the upper border. The lower border (see figure below) depicts the gods Mars and Apollo holding a mantle with the armorial of Armand Jean du Plessis, Cardinal Richelieu (1585–1642), chief minister to Louis XIII. Le Brun was one of the founding members of the Académie royale de peinture et de sculpture, established in 1648, and he was later appointed painter to the king.

Among Jayne Wrightsman’s donations to the Morgan was a group of forty-one letters and documents signed by various members of the French court and other major European royal houses from the seventeenth to the nineteenth century. The letter on the left, signed by Louis XVI and bearing an embossed royal seal, informs George III of the death of Louis’s aunt, Madame Sophie (whose yellow-bound books are on view elsewhere in the exhibition). At right, Philippe II thanks the marquis d’Avaray for his condolences at the death of Philippe’s daughter Marie-Louise, duchesse de Berry (1695–1719). The close relationship between father and daughter instigated many rumors and may have inspired Voltaire’s play Oedipus.

Chastelet dedicated his political treatise and its exceptional binding to Louis XIV, “the Sun King.” The motto across the cover, Vanescunt aliae luces (Other lights fade), was likely invented by Chastelet to reflect Louis’s grandeur more appropriately, since the text makes a point of criticizing the king’s traditional motto, Nec pluribus impar (translated literally, “Not unequal to many”)—a head-scratching double negative that many found obscure. Despite Chastelet’s
attempts at flattery, the treatise landed him in jail for suggesting several social and economic reforms to address the growing ills that he had observed in prerevolutionary France.

Boucher composed this sweeping allegorical frame as one of the frontispieces in Owen MacSwiny’s Tombs of Princes, Great Captains, and Other Illustrious Men, a volume of engravings featuring allegorical tombs of notable Englishmen. This composition introduced the tomb of Sidney Godolphin (1645–1712), a British politician instrumental in negotiating the Acts of Union in 1707, which established Great Britain as a political entity. Boucher’s frame was ultimately engraved by Charles-Nicolas Cochin the Younger for the print publication.

Jean-Baptiste Oudry was a portrait painter who was also well known for his ability to render animals. This is likely why he was inspired in 1729–34 to compose 277 drawings based on the animal fables of Jean de La Fontaine (1621–1695). Oudry made these compositions for his own artistic practice and enjoyment. Upon his death, however, the suite of drawings was acquired by the writer and editor Louis Regnard de Montenault (act. 1750–60), who used them to illustrate a monumental new printed edition of the Fables (in the center of the room). Montenault employed Charles-Nicolas Cochin the Younger to rework the drawings so that they could be more effectively converted into engravings.

La Fontaine’s Fables is one of the most ambitious, monumental book productions to emerge from eighteenth-century Paris. A celebration of French literature, engraving, and typography, it was not so much a book to read as one to collect for its artistic value. The Monkey and the Cat illustration was engraved by Louis Legrand (1723–1807) based upon the original Jean-Baptiste Oudry and Charles-Nicolas Cochin drawing (on the wall to your left). The composition, reversed through the engraving process, has a more detailed setting and intense play of light and shadow than the original, although the focus on the lively animals is diminished.

Louis Stanislas, comte de Provence, a younger brother of Louis XVI’s who later reigned as Louis XVIII, commissioned Cochin to illustrate a printed edition of the sixteenth-century epic Jerusalem Delivered by the Italian poet Torquato Tasso. Cochin produced forty-one full-page drawings and forty-one smaller head-and tailpiece illustrations, each of which earned him the considerable sum of five hundred francs. The superimposed grid on each sketch was to help enlarge and transfer the composition to a copper engraving plate. Cochin also produced more finished versions of each composition—likely to aid the engravers with details and shading—that were then gifted to Stanislas.

Around 1782, the Montgolfier brothers became among the first to develop the European hot-air balloon, or globe aérostatique, as they called it. As they came from a family of paper manufacturers in southern France, the brothers used materials like paper and taffeta in their early experiments to create the large pockets for hot air. This drawing by Boilly captures the expressions and personalities of the two brothers. Joseph, the elder and purportedly shier sibling, is portrayed behind the outgoing Étienne.

Noé, bishop of Lescar, delivered this speech to the King’s Dragoons, an elite group of Louis XVI’s troops, after they had just returned from America. In September 1781, the dragoons aided George Washington’s army at the Battle of the Chesapeake, a critical turning point in the American Revolution that sealed the British general Charles Cornwallis’s defeat at Yorktown. This copy was bound for Noé’s nephew, Louis Charles de la Baig, who was the French unit’s
second-in-command under General Lafayette. The decorative elements in the dentelle commemorate the victorious dragoons, while a glorified France is literally placed on a pedestal.

The Montgolfier brothers’ experiments with hot-air balloons quickly drew the attention of the king. On 19 September 1783, they performed the first-ever flight at Versailles, sending up several farm animals as passengers. That October, Étienne became the first human test pilot, in a balloon decorated with Louis XVI’s face and monogram (see image at right). These two bindings commemorate that ascent, replacing Louis’s initials with those of Marie-Antoinette. The Montgolfier balloon made such an impact that the balloon globe became a visual element in all types of decorative arts and home accessories.

Colbert was minister of the navy under Louis XIV, a position he gained from his father, Jean-Baptiste Colbert (1619–1683), an influential secretary of state known as Le Grand Colbert. The younger Colbert inherited his father’s extensive library of over twenty thousand volumes. Although he was not too interested in expanding the collection, this volume is one of several that can be directly tied thim. Tachard, a Jesuit missionary and mathematician, wrote Voyage to Siam after several trips to the region (modern-day Thailand) as a French envoy; of interest to Colbert may have been the account’s firsthand insight into a place where France had imperialist aims.

The Bourbon line of the French monarchy began with Henri IV, Louis XIV’s grandfather, who was descended from the youngest son of Louis IX (St. Louis). The elaborate manuscript hymn honoring St. Louis at left—a presentation copy for Louis XIV—traces the familial connection to the saint and thereby underscores the Bourbons’ divine authority to rule.

At right is a volume of religious texts reissued annually for Holy Week (semaine sainte), the week before Easter. The engraved frontispiece
depicts Louis XV and Marie Leszczyńska in prayer before a vision of the Christian Trinity. Such illustrations helped printers to market their yearly editions in a competitive market.

The small prayer book at the center of this case was used by Louis XVI’s younger sister Élisabeth in 1793, when the royal family was jailed in the Temple fortress prior to their executions by the republican government. It is signed inside “Elisabeth, La Temple, 1793,” with a small sketch of the Crucifixion. The text itself is dedicated to Marie Leszczyńska, and the book likely passed from her to her granddaughter Élisabeth. The elaborate binding is in keeping with the traditional degree of decoration on religious books. One large stamp produced the floral vase while many small tools, including several in the shape of butterflies and insects, were used for the surround.

Before she became Louis XIV’s second wife, Madame de Maintenon was the governess to his illegitimate children, including Françoise-Marie de Bourbon. At left is a
prayer book dedicated to the devout Maintenon. Although the text looks handwritten, it was in fact printed from engraved plates in a style meant to imitate
longhand. The decoration in Françoise-Marie’s manuscript prayer book at right emulates that in her governess’s book. When Françoise-Marie married her cousin
Philippe II, duc d’Orléans—who was regent of France during Louis XV’s minority—she briefly became the highest-ranking woman at court.

The two bindings at left in this case belonged to Marie-Adélaïde de Savoie and Marie Leszczyńska, respectively the mother and wife of Louis XV. Marie-Adélaïde’s
entire armorial composition (everything inside the oval) was produced from one large stamp, an unusual choice for the period that suggests there was a need to
efficiently decorate a large quantity of books. In contrast, the armorial and full cover composition for Marie Leszczyńska were built up from small individual
tools, which would have been laborious both to design and to implement—befitting her status as queen.

The binding at left for Marie-Thérèse, the first wife of Louis XIV, features a grid (semis) of fleurs-de-lis and her crowned MT cypher. Toward the end of the seventeenth century, binding decoration changed to focus on framing patterns with a centerpiece or armorial, as seen in the middle binding for Louis’s second wife, Madame de Maintenon. As an untitled queen of France, she was not permitted to use the French insignia as Marie-Thérèse did; however, this allowed Maintenon’s armorial to stand alone, undefined by that of her husband. Similarly, Louis’s mistress Madame de Montespan could not use the French royal emblems, and her binding at right includes only her initials.

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Prior to her 2019 bequest, Jayne Wrightsman gave the Morgan a group of forty-one letters and documents that provide a record of French court life from the seventeenth to the nineteenth century. Over two-thirds of the documents were written or signed by women, including two queens of France, Marie Leszczyńska and Marie-Antoinette; Josephine, empress of France; Henrietta Maria, queen of England; Maria Theresa, empress of Austria; Catherine the Great, empress of Russia; and Madame de Pompadour, one of the most renowned courtiers of the ancien régime. The pair of documents shown here are signed by two significant women during the reign of Louis XIV: his mistress Madame de Montespan (left) and his second wife, Madame de Maintenon (right).

Madame de Pompadour’s library contained over thirty-five thousand books, making it one of the largest literary repositories of the ancien régime. Her affinity for high-end works of art and luxury items extended to her books, many of which were lavishly decorated. On this binding, Douceur added red accents at the corners and within individual flowers to highlight the dentelle. Among Pompadour and her peers, books were often displayed with prominence as objets d’art—as Jayne Wrightsman lived with them—of which this colored and delicately gilt binding is an excellent example.

Madame de Pompadour commissioned Boucher to illustrate the edition of Pierre Corneille’s play Rodogune, first published in 1647, that she was having printed at Versailles (on view in the case below). The frontispiece illustrates the climax of the play, when both Cleopatra, queen of Syria, and Rodogune, a Parthian princess, accuse each other of the murder of Seleucus. Boucher drew the scene from two vantages, which were later combined into a single composition. The original engraving, seen in the proof print to the right, was produced by Pompadour and then touched up for the final printing by Charles-Nicolas Cochin the Younger.

Adélaïde, Victoire, and Sophie were daughters of Louis XV and Marie Leszczyńska. The sisters held significant positions at court; Adélaïde, for example, served as an advisor both to her father and to her nephew Louis XVI. The bindings of the Mesdames are differentiated by color: Adélaïde’s are bound in red morocco, Victoire’s in green, and Sophie’s in yellow (citron). The diamond-shaped armorial of the fille de France (daughter of France) is the same for each, however. Of the three sisters, Adélaïde had the most extensive library—over eleven thousand volumes, surpassed only by the collection of Madame de Pompadour. Adélaïde’s books are richly decorated, demonstrating nearly every stylistic technique practiced by contemporary binders.