About the book:
This is a miniature book by the British artist Barbara Dorf (1933 – 2016). Barbara Dorf was born into a North London Jewish middle class family in November 1933, her father was a Polish furrier whose business was bombed during the war. She studied at the Central School of Art and Crafts in London and then she won a scholarship to the Slade School of Fine Art, studying there until 1962. Ever with few funds she sat as a nude model, taught at the Ruskin School of Drawing and at Oxford Brookes University and in several girls’ boarding schools.
She painted architectural subjects in oil and watercolour and in charcoal drawings, and was a regular exhibitor at the Royal Academy in London and with the New English Art Club. Starting in 1978, she had a series of solo shows at the Michael Parkin Gallery and also had solo shows at the Montpelier Sandelson Gallery in 1981 and a number of shows at the Mass Gallery from 1986. In 1993 she was part of a three artist show at the Jerram Gallery in Salisbury. Works by Dorf are in the British Museum collection and also held by both Lady Margaret Hall and St Edmund Hall in Oxford. Kingston University holds an archive of Dorf’s long-term correspondence with her friend, the author Iris Murdoch.
Her base for 50 years was 11 Pembridge Villas, just off Notting Hill Gate, a studio flat with high ceilings and good light. This miniature book is hand-painted and annotated by Barbara Dorf, all on the theme of Venice in Italy.
About the binding:
- A full leather case binding bound in dark green goatskin on the spine and Pistachio-coloured buffalo skin on the boards.
- The spine has a false-round, made from a half-round wooden dowel.
- The pages are bound on a concertina stub, folded from pale green paper.
- The edge-to-edge doublures are patterned with slivers of different coloured leathers and Moon gold leaf in a random pattern.
- The boards have brass armatures fixed to them, used as a catch to hold the book closed.
- A turned wooden pole slides through the brass armatures to act as a clasp for the book.
- The box is made from beech and has a window cut through the lid.
Design Description
This little book contains numerous pages of beautifully illustrated paintings of Venice alongside annotations.
I was lucky enough to visit Venice a few years ago, and along with the Cicchetti (The Venetian answer to Spanish tapas), Bellinis, the bridges, and of course the canals, one of the main things that stuck in my mind was the colourful poles you see everywhere.
The poles that line the canals of Venice are called “Pali di casada”, which is translated as, “poles of the family”. These colourful poles are painted in family colours and were originally placed in front of palaces to help visitors recognise them at night. Traditionally on top of each pole, an oil lamp shed light in the dark. Nowadays, these oil lamps are replaced by modern caps or “cappellozzi”; which they symbolise. The designs are all different in size, design and colour; depending on their location.
I decided to base the cover design on these poles, which also feature in the little paintings within the book. The colour theme within the text block is mixed with rich purples, blues, greens, oranges and gold. I chose to create a design using a green and orange colour palette. The covers of the binding were therefore embellished with strips of stripy onlays and embroidery to illustrate the pali di casada.
For the doublures, I decorated them to appear like “Terrazzo”. The origins of Terrazzo can trace their roots across the globe and as far back as ancient Egypt, but modern-day Terrazzo that we use today began its story around 500 years ago in Venice, Italy. Venetian artisans of the time began to take the discarded chips from marble slabs and imbed them into concrete mixtures creating an attractive tile with coloured flecks. I pared off thin pieces of leather in greens, oranges, cream and gold and stuck them randomly onto some pale green buffalo skin to create the effect.
The book is held together with a turned wooden pole, made to the same profile as the poles on the covers of the book.
The box was designed to give the appearance of a Venetian window from both the outside and the inside of the lid. The book can be seen through the ‘window’ in the closed lid of the box, as if looking out onto the canal from inside a Venetian building with the blind half closed. When the lid is opened, the outside of the window, with shutters, is visible.
Here’s a video of the binding being taken out of the box, and leafing through the beautifully decorated pages of the text block.