Creator
J. McDonald
Title
The Rainbow
Coverage
Albany
Publisher
A. L. Harrison
Date
1847
Description
This Victorian “patent stereographic” publishers’ binding is known in a handful of copies. The process, invented in 1847 by William McAdams of Albany, NY, involved stamping the leather binding with successive wooden dies soaked in specially prepared pigments to emulate color onlays. While traditional leather onlay work could take a day or more per binding, McAdams’s invention allowed hundreds of volumes to be produced at the same time. The Rainbow demonstrates how the process could be used to imitate the style of a sixteenth-century entrelac mosaic binding.
Source
Gift of H. George Fletcher, 2018.