#tree calf

[uwmspeccoll]

Marbled Monday

This Marbled Monday we’re sharing Night Thoughts on Life, Death & Immortality by English poet Edward Young (1683-1765). Night Thoughts is Young’s most well-known work and it was very popular during his time. This edition was published in 1793, some 50 years after the poem was originally published, by Chapman & Co., London. It features fifteen engravings, but the engraver is not identified. The poem, as it says, deals with questions of life and death, with Death featuring in many of the illustrations.

This book is a lovely example of both Turkish marbling and tree calf leather binding. It is called “tree calf” because it is calfskin treated with chemicals in such a way that the pattern on the leather resembles a tree, as shown in the picture of the back cover featured here. The marbling of the endpapers is a lovely multi-colored Turkish pattern featuring teal/green, light blue, yellow, red, and either black or dark blue. Some of the colors have changed with wear over time, but it is certainly still nice to look at!

View more Marbled Monday posts.

-- Alice, Special Collections Department Manager

[noelcollection]

Erasmus Darwin (1731-1802) first published The Botanic Garden: A Poem in 1791, in which he used the Linnaean System of botany as a basis to creatively write about the physiology and sexual lives of plants. This two-volume edition was published in 1799 and is bound in tree calf leather, a binding style created when calf leather is stained and polished to resemble wood grain.

Images from:

Darwin. Erasmus. The Botanic Garden: A Poem. London : printed for J. Johnson..., 1799.

Call Number: PR3396 .A62 1799

Catalog Record: https://bit.ly/3EDUtrt

[dydhekul]

I thought I’d upload a few images of bindings I like

[oberlincollegelibraries]

Tree Calf

Decorating the surface of calfskin bound books was quite popular in the late 18th- and 19th-centuries. One of the most recognizable patterns is called “tree calf” because the acid is poured over the surface of the leather to make a pattern that looks like a tree. 

This book has to be turned upside down for the full effect, but it has one of the more dramatic trees we’ve seen in a while.

[noelcollection]

This book was a prize for a Highgate School student who won second place in divinity sixth form. The Highgate School crest is stamped on the back cover. Another coat of arms is stamped on the front cover. The endpapers and edges are decorated with marbling.

Images from: Arthur Penrhyn Stanley's Sinai and Palestine in connection with their history. London : John Murray, Albemarle Street, 1905.

Call Number: DS107 .S787 1905 Catalog record: https://bit.ly/2wwxcWn

[recoleta2015]

A tree calf and its pair.