From a Letter to Colleagues Shared on Book_Arts-L. Discovered via Twitter.

The Folger Bindings Image Collection provides access to high resolution images and descriptions of bindings from the rare book and manuscript collections of the Folger Shakespeare Library. Bindings are chosen from the collection for photography and description not only because of decorative tooling but also for their physical

features as functional objects and cultural artifacts. Recording information about binding structure and decoration can reveal items where the same or similar tools may have been used at different times by different binders or binding workshops. Uncovering such similarities can also help link multiple bindings to individual owners, collectors, binders, or workshops –even in cases where a binder may be as yet unidentified –as well as to specific geographical regions or time periods.

Contents of the database:

+ Included among the over 3,000 images depicting over 1,000 bindings

are descriptions and depictions of:

+ bindings in our collection of incunabula, including for instance this 15th century German half-leather and wood board binding on a 1481 Nuremberg edition of Platina’s Vitae pontificum;

+ bindings by 18th century English bookbinder Roger Payne;

+ fore-edges that are

gauffered or

painted;

+ identified and unidentified armorial bindings.

Most of the records in this database represent new bindings research and photography created by Folger Rare Bindings Specialist and former Head of Conservation J. Franklin Mowery, with the assistance of Bindings Database Intern Rachel Bartgis.