Persian MS 4 (The John Rylands Research Institute and Library, The University of Manchester)

Binding

Probably bound in a hybrid British-Indian style in the Indian subcontinent for an unidentified British owner after 1827, the date of the East India Company watermarks apparent on the right pastedown and first right flyleaf b side (f.ib).

Endpapers of medium-weight, straight-grained, ivoury coloured paper with ~10 laid lines per cm and 26 mm between chain lines, watermarked with the East India Company ‘VEIC’ insignia, the maker's name ‘E. WISE 1827’, manufactured by Edward Wise (1785–1863), who then owned and operated the Padsole Mill, Maidstone, Kent.
147 × 91 mm.
Sewn on three tapes or flat thongs, rounded and backed, then laced into pasteboards. Edges trimmed, coloured bright yellow, then front-bead decorative endbands sewn in blue and white threads at head and tail. Covered in full crimson goatskin leather, tight-backed and tight-jointed, with squares along the edges but without a flap (Type III binding per Déroche).

Exterior boards decorated in a fully gilt Cambridge panel-inspired design, with European tools, with central floral designs made of four impressions of the same tool, and margins and mitres executed with a seried of decorative rolls, including dots, meanders, and foliate scrollwork, all hand-tooled in gold leaf. Spine divided into seven panels and palleted with meanders and dotted lines and serpentine lines on either side, and large, open quatrefoil designs in the centres, also hand-tooled in gold leaf. Untitled.

331 × 215 × 32 mm.

Handle binding with caution. In fair but stable condition, with extensive abrasion and insect damage to the exterior, and sight sewing in the interior.