hello and welcome to insider insights i'm emma wagner associate educator in public programs and creative practice at the met in this series we're providing closer looks at objects from the collection and exhibitions as well as a glimpse behind the scenes of the work of met experts who interpret and care for them today we're joined by my colleague holly phillips the associate manager of collection development and special collections in watson library holly is responsible for acquiring rare research material and overseeing the gifts program she joined the staff of watson library in 1995. with its collection of more than one million volumes extensive digital collections and online resources the thomas j watson library is one of the world's most comprehensive art libraries the library's collection is expansive reflecting the encyclopedic nature of the museum from the early ancient near east to contemporary and current art its holdings include monographs exhibition catalogs auction catalogs and periodicals today holly will share with us books from watson's collection of american publishers bindings from the 19th and early 20th century thanks so much for joining us holly thank you emma i am pleased to share with you a selection of american publishers bindings in the collection of thomas j watson library dating from the early 1800s when books were bound with paper to the beautiful gold and color stamp bindings of the late 19th and early 20th century it is thanks to the friends of thomas j watson library who provided the funds for the american publishers bindings initiative and would generously allow us to continue building our collection before we take a look at our decorated bindings i would like to introduce you to watson library watson is located inside the beautiful 16th century spanish velez blanco patio which is located to the left of the great stairs in the museum currently the library is closed to the public we look forward to welcoming you when we reopen watson was founded the same exact year as the museum in 1870 in fact the charter for the museum states in said city a museum and a library should be founded and this is very telling because it indicates that the museum's founders knew the essential role that libraries play in museums and this has held to be true for over 150 years watson library has grown as the museum grows providing research in broad areas to curators into our actively engaged community of researchers today watson library welcomes over 20 000 visitors per year and continues to be an active site of research central to the curatorial staff and serving our outside researchers we are open to the public college age or older and no appointment is necessary kenneth soner is our eighth chief librarian ken and i have worked together on the american publishers bindings initiative among many other projects watson also has an active outreach program providing specialized tours and lectures these lively images capture our yearly highlight showcase event where we display a selection of rare books acquired that year happily opening our doors to staff researchers and friends to enjoy our special collections material you can learn more about watson library by visiting our homepage through the mets website under learn with us and then libraries and research centers our online database is called watsonline you can access it through our homepage or by googling the word watsonline and our entire holdings can be searched here our digital collections can also be accessed through watsonline once on the digital collections page you can browse by subject including find bindings which you see here in addition to our american publishers bindings we have hundreds of other decorated european bindings including a gift of over 50 arnold bindings donated by mrs charles writesman in 2008. watson has a book conservation center located inside the library the staff sophia kramer yukari hayashida shayla nastasi mindel dubansky and adriana sajik they all are responsible for the conservation treatment and preservation of library and selected curatorial collections all across the museum and over four thousand rare books are treated each year by the staff in addition to the broad areas in our holdings there is a special emphasis this year on further developing these collecting areas african american art women and feminist art contemporary and judaica including a growing collection on artists of the holocaust in addition to so many artists represented in our research material by working closely with curatorial staff we have established a broad collection of decorated bindings which will be our focus we began building our collection in 2012 selecting books carefully including key artists of the period recurring pictorial themes and bindings representing the new technologies which emerged in the 19th century namely gold and color stamping we now have a representative study collection of over 800 american trade bindings we will take a look at a selection of these bindings decade by decade discussing the characteristics of each here on this timeline you will see key themes for each decade including the material the boards are covered with is it paper or cloth the extent of design coverage and sign versus unsigned cover designs american publishers bindings can be defined as american-bound books issued by a publisher and quantity targeted to a market and identical in appearance with decorative elements including gold and colored stamping dating from the 1820s through the 1930s the goal of the 19th century was to make books affordable yet decorative and to make them attractive to a mass audience there were two key technologies which developed in the 19th century making this possible the first technology is case making where the bookcase is joined with the book block after the stamping which allowed for more malleability to decorate the book cover and offering more decorating possibilities the other key technology was the invention of the imperial arming press in 1832 this sped up the process of book cover decoration by allowing one person to accomplish with the pull of a handle what would have taken a traditional finisher hours to achieve with hand tooling the press made it possible for binderies therefore to produce full-scale additions in bulk to be sold economically to a wide audience and the way that the book press would work what you see here is that a case would be placed on the arming press block and a thin sheet of gold foil would sit on top of it a heated box right here which was above the book would have attached to the underside the stamping die and stamping dies were brass molds or a relief printing cast in a mold made from composed type or an original design and you can see dies that are waiting here to decorate the the case cover so with one pull of the handle or turn of the wheel the heated pressure of the box would press down onto the book covered with foil and the foil would be impressed into the book cover with the mold of the design and you can imagine the fastness of the press using one die to produce multiple identical cover designs in one hour versus a singular cover tooled by hand in an hour and now we will take a look at a selection of american trade bindings in watson's collection decade by decade beginning with the 1800s the first trade bindings were bound in paper paper was inexpensive and a faster way to bind books than leather one way to make paper decorative was using paste paper as you see here decorating a religious book published in 1804 paste paper is patterned or textured paper made by applying brushes and hand tools to the surface of paper coated with thin colored paste while it's still wet so it's the grooves of the tools or the brushes are what create the design another way to decorate books economically with paper in the early 19th century was by marbling as it is seen here in the scarce over marbled printed waste paper binding here we see recycled printed paper with text with a marbling design over it on both the front and the back cover of the book here are two more examples of books bound in pace paper both in german with lovely patterns an 1818 catechism with a striped ovoid pattern and a handbook on german law at the right from 1828 with a floral pattern the 1830s bring the arrival of cotton-bound books including plain weave calico cloth grain cloth and ribbon embossed cloth the very first cotton-bound books in the 1830s were plain with only a paper or leather label egyptian cotton was used as it was considered stronger than other types because the fibers are much longer than other cottons in an attempt to mimic the appearance of leather or silk and thus to increase the appeal of the cloth manufacturers would add texture to the material by pressing a design into the cloth with a heated dye this is an example of a dark blue grain cloth binding from 1838 it is rather plain and unassuming at first glance however a close-up detail shows it to be a finely grained diaper pattern as a general guide the fancier the cloth grain the earlier the book there are hundreds of grain cloth patterns which have been identified by author andrea krupp in her essential resource book cloth crop lists each grain pattern with a date range and frequency and provides cross references to previous nomenclature another form of cloth decoration at this time is called ribbon embossing and there are swatches in krupp's book on this kind of cloth decorating as well ribbon embossing is adding ornamentation beyond the graining over a fine ribbed background applied with a heated roller and here are examples from our collection the very beautiful binding at right william ware's 1838 edition of probis has a lovely ribbon embossed leaf pattern over a fine woven cloth by the 1840s cloth bindings gained public acceptance and binders gained technical control of the materials you see many books with central vignettes including flower urns and wreaths like the books on the bottom here and what you also start to see is that those central vignettes are corresponding with the book subject and you also start to see binders names inside the frame but you may also notice from looking at this picture are that the advent of stripes are very popular in the 1840s here are examples of some of our stripe bindings the wonderful dramatic cover for festus in the middle has a brown printed patterned cloth with horizontal gold stripes and a centerpiece of a twisted gold snake being struck down by lightning this design is repeated on the back cover as well and we see more wonderful stripe bindings in our collection these are bound by benjamin bradley with a few of his other designs bradley was the largest bindery in new england at the time and produced the best quality publishers bindings as we move into the 1850s you will see vivid bookcloth covers as aniline dyes are introduced aniline dyes are the first synthetic dyes so you will have brighter colors like strong reds and vibrant blues there's also a generous gold stamping of the spine and covers as well as silver stamping which as you would imagine would tarnish on the cover how this was resolved we'll see later here are some 1850s examples from our collection including the vivid blue tickner and fields edition at the far right of the song of hiawatha again covers are starting to reflect the subject of the book inside as we see at far left with the odd fellows textbook featuring a gold stamped handshake referring to the international fraternity which is the subject of the book in the 1860s we see a big change in book cover design the strain of the civil war was evident with minimal decoration and muted colors here are three examples from our collection during the civil war the binding at far left although a solid muted color is intricate the book has a horizontal wave pattern with blind stamping of an oval rule and fluoron cornices blind stamping is impressing the book cloth with a design or text without color or gold leaf and it is used very effectively here creating an austere yet elegant and patriotic binding with a gold stamp star at the center the green cloth binding at center again appears unassuming at first but a close-up look shows a rather dynamic wave pattern similar to the star binding in the 1870s we see a return to generously decorated covers with the arrival of black ink snapping as well as asymmetrical and diagonal designs from previous reliance on symmetrical style designers begin to work in a freer way and use the diagonal as an axis the diagonal emphasis is also likely a japanese mafluence the popularity and influence of japanese art and design in western europe and america at this time reflected in book cover design the book at far left five jewels of the orient features another new technique which emerged in the 1870s called pictorial only pictorial only is the adhering of chromolithographic and colored paper or photographs to the cover of the book as we see here with the five colorful paper jewels the 1880s is considered the golden age of american publishers bindings seeing the rise of the artist designer a well-known artist accomplished in the fine arts who also design book covers during this decade lettering becomes more organic expressive and flowing cloth grains have become plain where the emphasis now is on the stamping one of the most famous examples of an artist designer binding is ellie who vetter's beautiful version of the rubia which we see here at left we are very pleased to have the first deluxe elephant folio edition from 1884. in full morocco deeply embossed in black gold and blind tooling with a block printed design of swirling lines it is a tour de force of stamped book cover design and what is especially remarkable about this book and the additions is that vedder designed all aspects of the book the cover the beautiful tool de bloors with the central silk panels he also did the artwork and the lettering other examples of artist designers in our collection are maurice prendergast on the point at center with its bird's eye view and cherry blossoms it recalls japanese prints a collection of which prendergast himself owned edwin austin abbey's binding at far-right for robert herrick's poetry reflects the art nouveau movement with a simplified organic design floral patterns are reduced to their essential geometric forms and the design has a kind of sinuous representation of nature abby best known for his drawings and paintings of shakespearean and victorian subjects also designed beautiful lyrical covers like this one watson has six of his decorated bindings in our collection an essential aspect of the golden age of american publishers bindings are women designers in the late 19th century there were more working opportunities for women artists and a core group of book designers emerged including margaret armstrong alice cordelia morse and sarah wyman whitman all of these women received training in the decorative arts including whitman and morse who studied stained glass design with john lafarge and all three women have distinctive styles and use gold stamping to achieve sophisticated designs sarah wyman whitman was known for her minimal design seen at far right with her beautiful cover for houghton mifflin's a marble fawn morse's elegant cover for my ladies slipper at center exemplifies a goal of the arts and crafts movement finding beauty in everyday objects with a green cloth cover and gold foil morse produced a cost-effective yet luxurious looking binding we now have over 180 more spawnings in our holdings as we acquired mindel dubanski's collection in 2004 a third well-known designer part of the core group was margaret armstrong affluent she was born in 1867 in new york city to a family of artists her father was a diplomat and a stained glass artist and armstrong was very prolific designing more than 270 book covers currently in watson library we have an installation of her stunning bindings which will remain on display when we reopen her attributed design for the song of the cardinal at far left is characteristic of her style colorful stylized floral motifs with a vertical emphasis resembling stained glass the museum owns several of her floral watercolor drawings which were recently on display in their robert wood johnson junior gallery during this decade many designers are signing their designs with a distinctive monogram note the unique monogram of morse where you have the a running right into the m combined armstrong's monogram as we see here is similar with the mna running together as clearly stamped on her binding days off from her henry van dyke series for which she is known armstrong is also known for her stunning lavender series for putnam sons for author myrtle reed there are 15 volumes in this series we have seven and growing in the 1890s we see the introduction of poster style cover designs which are bold areas of flattened color blanche mcmanus mansfield known for her colorful poster style designs uses another dynamic device known as a full cover or wraparound design for as told by the typewriter girl another full cover design in our collection is charles buckles falls charming butterfly design for emily post's flight of a moth will bradley is another well-known book cover designer of the 1890s using plain weave cloth and playing with dimension in flattened poster-like style his well-known atmospheric landscape design for russet and silver at far right is another full cover design with the image continuing on the back cover many of the designs we have looked at reflect a wide range of influences including the arts and crafts movement art nouveau japanese prints and poster style design in the final decade of our evolutionary journey of american decorated bindings in the 1900s we continued to see sign designer bindings elaborate pictorial subjects with paper onlays and now the emergence of matching paper dust jackets we also see a sophistication in the use of gold and color stamping elaborate gift additions and unusual binding materials for example we see a beautiful gift copy above of henry wadsworth longfellow's evangeline and we were delighted to acquire this book with its original gift box as well as the red bow and paper banner stating to my valentine as it was on display in the store for this holiday another elaborate binding which you see below is suffering herb a book on the history of tobacco appropriately incorporating an actual wooden cigar box as the front and back cover these three striking bindings make expert use of gold and silver stamping creating designs which conjure the mood and subject of the book's story for example in the beautiful algiers in the center by george w hood through delicate use of gold stamping it creates the effect of the moon reflected in the iron work of the dome roof looking towards a moonlit sea and at right we see a beautiful example of white metal stamping by thomas watson ball white metal stamping is an alloy of palladium and aluminum to create the look of actual silver which would tarnish on book covers his use of silver alloy here is so effective that you can almost hear the animated silver bells ringing and finally another technique occasionally seen in the 1900s is the colorful split fountain or rainbow roll often seen in conjunction with silhouettes a very attractive device it can be achieved by using multiple inks on one snapping die creating a dynamic color gradient as the colors merge together this brings us to the end of our decade by decade chronology we have seen simple calico covered books to cloth grains and all the way we've looked at elaborate color stampings i hope you have enjoyed seeing a selection of our american publishers bindings all of the bindings which we have looked at can be requested through watsonline and consulted in the library when we reopen we look forward to welcoming you then
2021-04-05