Bookbinding

14th century

Not on view

A twelve-point star serves as the central motif from which the geometric design of this cover emerges. The leather stain varies between two shades of brown to distinguish the shapes, further highlighted by the use of gold-tooled lines. Blind tooling is also employed to give texture to the leather surface interspersed with gold points. The interior flaps are covered with a lighter brown leather with an arabesque pattern. Two other similar bookbindings (33.14 & 33.103.3) in the collection exhibit the same stylistic characteristics, testifying to the popularity of such elaborate covers for manuscripts. Further, the use of complex geometric ornament as a decorative device in Egypt and Syria during the thirteenth- and fourteenth-centuries was prevalent in an expansive variety of objects, from large wooden furnishings to small portable objects such as this bookbinding.

Artwork Details

Title: Bookbinding
Date: 14th century
Geography: Attributed to Egypt or Syria
Medium: Leather, gold; stamped, tooled
Dimensions: H. 10 5/8 in. (27 cm)
W. 7 1/8 in. (18.1 cm)
D. 1/8 in. (0.3 cm)
Classification: Codices
Credit Line: Gift of H. Kevorkian, 1933
Object Number: 33.103.2a, b
Curatorial Department: Islamic Art

More Artwork

From the same time and place

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Bookbinding, Leather; stamped and gilded — Bookbinding
first half 14th century

"The Elephant Clock", Folio from a Book of the Knowledge of Ingenious Mechanical Devices by al-Jazari, Farrukh ibn `Abd al-Latif, Ink, opaque watercolor, and gold on paper — "The Elephant Clock", Folio from a Book of the Knowledge of Ingenious Mechanical Devices by al-Jazari
Farrukh ibn `Abd al-Latif
Badi' al-Zaman ibn al-Razzaz al-Jazari
dated 715 AH/1315 CE

Folio from a Qur'an Manuscript, Ink, gold, and watercolor on paper — Folio from a Qur'an Manuscript
dated 531 AH/1137 CE

"Preparing Medicine from Honey", from a Dispersed Manuscript of an Arabic Translation of De Materia Medica of Dioscorides, 'Abdullah ibn al-Fadl, Ink, opaque watercolor, and gold on paper — "Preparing Medicine from Honey", from a Dispersed Manuscript of an Arabic Translation of De Materia Medica of Dioscorides
'Abdullah ibn al-Fadl
dated 621 AH/1224 CE

Folio from a Mu'nis al-ahrar fi daqa'iq al-ash'ar (The Free Man's Companion to the Subtleties of Poems) of Jajarmi, Muhammad ibn Badr al-Din Jajarmi Iranian, Ink, opaque watercolor, and gold on paper — Folio from a Mu'nis al-ahrar fi daqa'iq al-ash'ar (The Free Man's Companion to the Subtleties of Poems) of Jajarmi
Muhammad ibn Badr al-Din Jajarmi
dated 741 AH/1340–41 CE

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