Persian MS 937 (The John Rylands Research Institute and Library, The University of Manchester)

Binding

Contemporary hybrid British-Indian style binding from the Indian subcontinent.

Endpapers of hand-dyed red paper stiff-leaved to British-made flyleaves, with ~20 laid lines per 20 mm and 24 mm. between chain lines, watermarked with an heart-shaped VEIC (East India Company) insignia, dated 1808:
Watermark: (probable dimensions derived from Persian MS 263)): 128 × 58 mm.
Counter marked: ‘S. Wise & Patch’, of Stacey Wise (1783–1842) in partnership with Christopher Patch (fl. 19th c.) who then operated the Padsole Mill in Maidstone, Kent.
Countermark: 17 × 170 mm.

Sewn all-along on two raised cords, laced into pasteboards. Edges trimmed, spattered red, and chevron endbands of yellow and metallic silver threads twined at head and tail, the former now lost. Covered in full, highly polished brick-red goatskin leather, tight-backed and tight-jointed, with squares along the edges, and a flap (Type II binding per Déroche).

Spine panels ruled with double silver lines. Boards decorated with scalloped central mandorlas, with smaller ones above and below, flanked by vertical cartouches and cornerpieces for the interior margins, engaved with floraiate scrollwork designs, and exterior margins of a narrow floriate chain design, all blocked in gold, with the same replicated on the flap.

234 × 174 × 37 mm.

Handle binding with caution. In poor but stable condition, with extensive losses caused by rodents along the head and fore-edge of the boards and flap interiors and exteriors. Losses to exterior decoration.