A fine example of a late ‘fanfare’ binding developed to decorate the new editions of the Office of Holy Week produced in the first half of the 18th century.
“The late seventeenth century saw the development of various new markets, such as that for the learned periodical, the state almanac, and that for officially approved and backed prayer books for use in court circles. Panel stamps had been used for the decoration of Books of Hours in the sixteenth century, and it is not perhaps surprising that this technique for the rapid treatment of a number of similar-sized books, in which a certain fashionable appearance without too much work or cost was desired, should have been reintroduced. The spur seems to have been the desire of Louis XV’s new queen, the devout Marie Leszczynska, to support a new edition of the Office de la Semaine Sainte, which came out in 1726, the year after the royal marriage. The later edition of 1728 in particular is known with bindings in which the covers are decorated by means of one of two panel stamps. Both are all-over designs of the sixteenth-century type known as the ‘fanfare’ style, with interlacing strapwork filled in by small tools. Both panels are top-to-bottom mirror images of themselves, leaving only an oval in the centre for an armorial stamp.” (Barber).
Provenance: Gilt leather exlibris to front pastedown of Ph. J. van Alfen, Doorn, Netherlands.
Ref: Giles Barber, Rothschild Bequest at Waddesdon Manor, (2013). Hobson p. 66, plate XXIII.
