[Cosway-Style Binding] | Joseph Turquan

[Cosway Style Binding] ─ Joseph Turquan

The Empress Josephine.

Londres, John Lane, The Bodley Head ; New York: John Lane Company; Toronto : Bell & Cockburn, 1913.

Octavo (207 × 134 mm). Red morocco, ivory miniature (portrait of Joséphine) set into the center of the upper cover within a gilt rocaille frame, spine with raised bands decorated with the Imperial bee and rocaille tools, inner frame of red morocco, blue-toned silk doublures and endleaves, gilt edges (Bayntun, Rivière [circa 1940]).

A “Cosway-style binding.”

First edition, with numerous photogravure plates.

A Cosway-style binding executed by George Bayntun (1873–1940), founder of the Bayntun Bindery in Bath (1894). In 1939, the firm acquired the celebrated Rivière bindery, which had been active for a century.

Cosway bindings are characterized by the presence of a miniature set into the upper cover, and sometimes into the doublures. Named after the miniaturist Richard Cosway (1742–1821), they were in fact developed in the early twentieth century by J. H. Stonehouse, director of the London bookseller Henry Sotheran Booksellers, and executed by the Rivière bindery (voir lot 1170). Other booksellers, such as Bayntun here, later commissioned bindings incorporating miniatures, subsequently referred to as “Cosway-style” bindings (lots 1171 and 1172).

Please note that this lot contains elephant ivory. Pursuant to the UK Ivory Act 2018, clients based in the United Kingdom are not able to bid on / purchase this lot. The export of lots containing ivory outside the EU is now prohibited pursuant to European regulation 2021/2280 of 16 December 2021. Sotheby's will be able to provide the buyer with the intra-community certificate attached to this item.