VENICE – RARE 18TH CENTURY EMBROIDERED SILK BINDING – PROTOG...

Hammer

£120

VENICE – RARE 18TH CENTURY EMBROIDERED SILK BINDING – PROTOGIORNALE, 1797

Protogiornale per l'Anno MDCCXCVII ad uso della Serenissima Dominante Città di Venezia, Venice, Giuseppe Bettinelli, 1797, the final year of publication of the Venetian Protogiornale, incorporating the Nuovo Libro d'Oro relating to the patrician families of Venice.

A particularly attractive copy in an unusual contemporary cream silk/satin embroidered binding, the boards worked with differing male and female figures within scrolling metallic-thread and foliate borders embellished with sequins/spangles, patterned endpapers, engraved frontispiece and woodcut device to title.

1797 was the final year of the centuries-old Venetian Republic and also the concluding year of publication of the Protogiornale series, which had commenced in 1759.

Retaining an old bookseller's typewritten catalogue description identifying the binding as contemporary needlework and referring to an associated card bearing the name “Philipp Prinz von Hessen”; the latter provenance has not been independently verified.

Approx. 15 × 10 cm.

Condition: considerable age-related wear to the textile binding including staining, fading, fraying, losses and deterioration to edges and spine; binding internally weakened with some separation, contents with age-related toning and marking, as extensively photographed. Not collated.