About the book:
Cyril James Humphries Davenport was born in 1848 and was a British librarian, art historian, and designer. He initially worked as a draftsman for the Royal Engineer Department of the War Office before joining the British Museum Library (now part of the British Library) in 1868. During his tenure, he became Superintendent of Bookbinding, retiring in 1913.
Davenport was regarded as an authority on the history of bookbinding and published extensively on this and other art and cultural history topics. He was a Fellow of the Society of Antiquaries of London. Additionally, he was an artist, working as a watercolour and miniature painter, book cover designer, sculptor, enameller and goldsmith.
English Embroidered Bookbindings is a seminal work on the history and art of embroidered book covers in England, detailing techniques, materials, and the cultural significance of these ornate bindings. This book, part of “The English Bookman’s Library” series, remains a valuable resource for those interested in historical bookbinding and decorative arts.
Embroidery was applied to books in England as early as the 14th century, becoming particularly prominent in the 16th and 17th centuries, often featuring religious or heraldic motifs. These bindings typically involved embroidered textile covers applied to ready-bound books, using materials such as satin, velvet, canvas and various metallic threads, including gold and silver. Most embroidered bindings were produced by professional needleworkers.
Davenport’s work highlights the “bookman’s” enthusiasm for books, particularly among England’s upper classes in the 19th century, with embroidered bindings representing a luxurious and often symbolic aspect of book ownership. The book examines the different categories of designs, including heraldic, figure, floral, and arabesque patterns, and discusses the symbolism often embedded within these intricate designs. The book is illustrated with numerous plates, showcasing various examples of embroidered bookbindings from different periods and styles.
About the binding:
- A full leather binding covered in dark green goatskin, sewn onto five tapes.
- The illustrated pages of the book were stuck to new guard strips before the sections were resewn.
- The onlays were cut from a series of different coloured, thinly-pared, green leathers.
- The front and back covers of the binding are hand-embroidered with threads in a large variety of different colours, building up the stitches over the onlays.
- The binding has edge-to edge leather doublures onto which the cover design flows.
- The spine of the book has a recessed area with the title of the book applied.
- The title is hand-pierced from thinly pared green leather and backed with golf leaf, then lots of small seed stiches were applied in different coloured threads around the letters.
- The top edge of the binding was patterned by printing a textured material onto the prepared surface.
- The same printing method was applied onto the endpapers.
- The foredge and bottom edge of the text block are hand deckled.
- The double core endbands were made using a combination of sewn-silk threads for the bottom tier, and a paper-covered core behind.
- The binding is housed in a wooden box made of Cherry box, lined with dark green velvet.
- The lid of the box has three embroidered brooches mounted into the lid: satin, canvas and velvet.
Design Description:
Embroidered bookbindings were a luxurious alternative to traditional leather bindings. They primarily flourished in England from the 16th to 17th centuries, with the earliest known example dating to the 14th century and experienced a revival in the Victorian era. These elaborate bindings, often featuring silk and metal threads on canvas, velvet or satin covers, adorned books of personal devotion, Bibles, and presentation copies for royalty and the clergy.
English Embroidered Bookbindings was published at the end of the Victorian era and is a comprehensive study of the art of embroidered book covers in England, detailing their history, materials, techniques, and showcasing numerous examples. Since the very first fine binding I made, I utilised sewn threads on the cover in some way. It was therefore a wonderfully apt commission to be entrusted with given my specialism.
The book explores materials like satin, canvas and velvet, which is what English embroidered bindings were historically covered in and whilst I wanted to feature these three materials in some way I didn’t plan to use them as part of the covering material. Instead, I opted to embroider three smaller elements onto these three materials to display on the lid of the box in a design to match that of the book cover: ferns.
English ferns became a subject of widespread artistic and decorative interest during the Victorian era, particularly between the 1840s and late 19th century, a period known as “Pteridomania” or “fern fever”. This craze saw ferns and their motifs integrated into architecture, decorative arts, and botanical illustrations, reflecting a broader fascination with natural history and scientific discovery. It therefore seemed apt to use them as an adornment for a book published during this same era.
The flat nature of fern fronds makes them particularly adaptable for decorative applications, and wonderfully fun to embroider! I wanted the format of the design to work across the book, so opted for a wreath design that flows around onto the leather doublures on both the front and back covers of the binding.
I also wanted to add some goldwork threads into this binding. Goldwork embroidery is one of the oldest English embroidery techniques with records dating from before the 10th century. Traditionally goldwork embroidery was worn on ecclesiastical vestments and church trappings. Also, in Royal circles and rich aristocratic families, for them it was an ostentatious display of wealth and power.
The goldwork threads used to be pure gold and were flattened and wound around strands of animal and human hair, but because the gold was so brittle they were later wrapped around materials such as silk, animal gut, paper, or parchment. In the early days this was all done by hand, which made the cost phenomenal. Thankfully these days it is possible to buy metallised threads wrapped around a synthetic core which produce the same effect.
The stitches utilised for the binding to build up the design were: running stitch; Holbein stitch; couching; whipping; French knots and seed stitch. The cover was also blind tooled to give a greater textural effect around the fern’s embroidery.
The endpapers and the top edge of the binding were printed in red acrylic paint from mull. Mull is a fine, sheer, and soft cotton fabric that belongs to the muslin family, known for its open and loosely woven structure which gives it a lightweight and breathable quality. The name “mull” is derived from the Hindi word “mal,” meaning “soft”. Mull is commonly used in bookbinding to reinforce the spines of books and/or to attach the book block to the covers in case binding. The open weave of this material made it ideal for printing the pattern onto these areas of the binding.
By complete chance, on receipt of the binding, the client pointed out that the cover design with the two halves of the wreath could be interpreted as the author’s initials: C and D. This was a complete coincidence but wonderfully fitting!
