Creator
Left to right:
Title
Il decameron di Messer Giovanni Boccacci cittadino Fiorentino [vol. 2]. Amsterdamo [i.e., Naples]: n.p., 1703; George Coleman. The Circle of Anecdote and Wit. London: Printed for J. Bumpus et al., 1822.
Description
These two decorated leather-covered bindings incorporate color into their designs, but in very different ways. The taller of the two is an 18th-century Italian binding that features a strapwork design tooled in gold and filled in with green paint applied by hand. The second example, a 19th-century English binding, features a diamond-shaped onlay of thinly pared red leather that has been tooled in gold where its edges meet the green straight-grain morocco underneath. Onlays were more time consuming and costly to prepare than the hand painting seen on this Italian binding.
Source
From the collection of Rare Book School