As I've been sooooooo inundated with work lately, I haven't been updating my blog for a couple of weeks! The thing is,
Master
has been caught up with publishing jobs for a client, and all the
restoration works have been on my shoulders.. Anyway, for the last
couple of days, I had been working on the most famous book of
Sir. Thomas Browne's,
Pseudodoxia Epidemica or Enquries into very many received Tenents and commonly presumed Truths, together with the Religio Medici,
published in 1672. (The sixth and the last edition) Well, first of all, this book has
been "restored" previously, and the person obviously didn't know what he
was doing... He used bookcloth/cloth to attempt re-hinging, (and patched a piece of unmatched leather over it superficially to cover it up.) and inevitably
failed. (The picture on the right.) I think I've mentioned how frustrating it is to fix someone
else's jobs sometime ago, and this wasn't an exception. One crucial
issue I had regarding the restoration of this book was that it was
impossible to remove the previous "re-hinge" material (which was glued
underneath the leather on the boards), without damaging the original
leather. Thus, I had to leave it alone, and had to do a rehinge with the
initial material still attached to the leather.. You see, it's like a
medical doctor couldn't take out a bullet from your brain because it
would result in damaging you even more, and you'll have to live with the
darn thing in the head for the rest of your life! So, people, if you
wanna fix your book by yourself, you gotta consult with a bookbinder,
yeah? Anyway, in terms of restoration of this book, it needed a re-hinge
with leather that I custom dyed to match the original, the edges and
corners of the boards reconstructed, and because it was missing
headbands, I did a quick set of one core headbands sewn. The client asked me
to design the spine to be suited for the era of the binding, so I did a
red, antiqued leather skiver and raised bands with blind band ornaments, just like the
original. Oh, by the way, this book had a book plate with an engraving
by
William Hogarth, so I took a picture of it. (By the way, the engraving and the quote on the bookplate "
I have several of the best books, though some of them are a little torn." are from
Henry Fielding's
Tom Jones, Chapter 8. )
As I've been sooooooo inundated with work lately, I haven't been updating my blog for a couple of weeks! The thing is, Master
has been caught up with publishing jobs for a client, and all the
restoration works have been on my shoulders.. Anyway, for the last
couple of days, I had been working on the most famous book of Sir. Thomas Browne's, Pseudodoxia Epidemica or Enquries into very many received Tenents and commonly presumed Truths, together with the Religio Medici,
published in 1672. (The sixth and the last edition) Well, first of all, this book has
been "restored" previously, and the person obviously didn't know what he
was doing... He used bookcloth/cloth to attempt re-hinging, (and patched a piece of unmatched leather over it superficially to cover it up.) and inevitably
failed. (The picture on the right.) I think I've mentioned how frustrating it is to fix someone
else's jobs sometime ago, and this wasn't an exception. One crucial
issue I had regarding the restoration of this book was that it was
impossible to remove the previous "re-hinge" material (which was glued
underneath the leather on the boards), without damaging the original
leather. Thus, I had to leave it alone, and had to do a rehinge with the
initial material still attached to the leather.. You see, it's like a
medical doctor couldn't take out a bullet from your brain because it
would result in damaging you even more, and you'll have to live with the
darn thing in the head for the rest of your life! So, people, if you
wanna fix your book by yourself, you gotta consult with a bookbinder,
yeah? Anyway, in terms of restoration of this book, it needed a re-hinge
with leather that I custom dyed to match the original, the edges and
corners of the boards reconstructed, and because it was missing
headbands, I did a quick set of one core headbands sewn. The client asked me
to design the spine to be suited for the era of the binding, so I did a
red, antiqued leather skiver and raised bands with blind band ornaments, just like the
original. Oh, by the way, this book had a book plate with an engraving
by William Hogarth, so I took a picture of it. (By the way, the engraving and the quote on the bookplate "I have several of the best books, though some of them are a little torn." are from Henry Fielding's Tom Jones, Chapter 8. ) 
A beautiful binding for a special book that will withstand many more years because you came to its rescue. You did a wonderful job. I love the detail of the quote on the bookplate!
ReplyDeleteThank you, Teo. I hope the client approves my work as well. - He's out of town and won't be able to pick it up till the end of the month. Am anxious..
DeleteHow lucky to have such a beautiful and antique book to restore! I understand your frustration with the previous repair attempt - so irritating to have to try and repair someone else's shoddy work; even more so when you can't just undo it and start again! However the finished result must have given you a great feeling of satisfaction - it looks fabulous! I bet the owner of this book is thrilled with the repairs.
ReplyDeleteLovely to have the opportunity to do this work. And lovely of you to share it with us!
Thank you for your complement, Lizzie. I do feel privileged to have a profession that allows me to have opportunities to touch history and become a part of it. It's fortunate to be able to handle beautiful craft of old times everyday of my life! Considering the seriousness of the issue with the previous restoration, this book came out to be better than I expected. This book should be able to outlive us all, but as the bookbinder, it sort of feels like having a lump in throat about the previous rehinge material still being inside the cover..
DeleteI'm still astounded by the quality you bring to your work, and reminded again why I have you bookmarked under my 'Art' section, rather than 'Blogs'...
ReplyDeleteAny news on when you'll be able to make another video?
Oh, Hello, Mr. A.F.! Thank you very much for your compliment. (blush*) Regarding the new video posting, at this moment, I must say I really don't know when I'll have spare time to record another tutorial video. I check my YouTube account every couple of days, and I see that the number of subscribers has increased dramatically in the last couple of months despite of lack of new video posting.. I totally feel horrible for those who might have expected that I post videos regularly like when I just created the account last December. Anyway, the reason why you don't see new posting is NOT because I got tired of making videos. I love doing it, but I just haven't had the spare time.. I'm HOPING that things calms by the end of next month, so that I can relax and make videos. Thanks for your patience!
Delete