Persian MS 310 (The John Rylands Research Institute and Library, The University of Manchester)

Binding

Resewn in Europe on four recessed supports, laced into wooden boards, with gilt and gauffered edges and silk decorative endpapers sewn at head and tail. Blue made endpapers, adhered to flyleaves watermarked ‘J. Whatman 18??’ manufactured by the Whatman Paper Mill in Maidstone, Kent, then owned and operated by William Balston (1759–1849).

Board exteriors sculpted with raised central diamonds and triangular corners, with intervening chased recesses. Elegantly tooled exteriors feature large central open scrollwork floral designs and cornerspieces, with single fillet lines with solid and insular dots at the joins, scrollwork blossoms at the tips of the central diamonds and outer corners, with small profile blossoms in the inner corners of the recesses, all in gold. Interior dentelles bear repeated large cruciform designs impressed in rows, bounded by single fillet lines, with scrollwork sqaured corners, and solid dots at the joins in gold, and a dot-and-dart design along the exteriors in blind, and a decorative roll featuring alternating palmettes and insular dots, with the same profile blossoms at the corners as observed on the board exteriors, impressed upon the perimeters of the blue paper pastedowns.

233 × 167 × 57 mm.

Binding in excellent condition.