A miniature silver binding decorated with painted enamel plaques and glass ?jewels.?

Silver filigree binding (82 x 60 mm., including spine). The covers of filigree volutes and curling tendrils with inset painted enamel oval centerpiece and heart-shaped corner-pieces showing putti in pastoral settings below love-related mottos in French (central plaque on front cover slightly damaged), both covers decorated with ten glass ?amethysts?; hollow tubular filigree spine, pair of fore-edge clasps and catches, the silver binding mounted over later yellow silk-covered thin pasteboards, the yellow silk liners with pockets front and back; preserved in a modern morocco case. Containing a 20th-century illustrated manuscript on parchment, pasted in (partly loose).*** This silver binding with painted enamel plaques belongs to a group of similarly decorated late 17th- or 18th-century miniature bindings. Several are on late 17th-century printed books or 18th-century manuscripts which have an Italian connection, and although their style may have been imitated in various centers of book production, it seems likely that most of the bindings were produced in Italy. I know of 15 such bindings, including this one. Most are found on various late 17th-century editions of the Office of the Virgin, printed in Paris from the 1670s to the early 1690s, but including editions in Italian; these little Offices seem to have been produced at least in part for the Italian market. Two of the bindings were used for Hebrew manuscript prayerbooks produced in Italy. (A census is available on request: it expands on that drawn up and kindly shared by Dr. Jan Storm van Leeuwen, who published an earlier version in the catalogue of Patricia Pistner?s miniature book collection, A Matter of Size, no. 123.) All but one of the bindings are miniature (measuring approximately 82 x 55/58 mm.) and are adorned with 12 to 20 cut-glass ?jewels.? The silverwork is of two types: ten are filigree, with spiraling volutes, as in this binding, and five are in a floral ajouré or openwork design with stems, leaves and blossoms (as in the Pistner example). The enamel plaques are also of two types (not correlated with the two different silverwork types). The majority, eleven, show Christian religious figures, with no inscriptions; these are in at least two different styles, and were probably produced in different workshops. They are all found on editions of the Office of the Virgin, printed between 1672 and 1693, all but one in Paris. Four bindings (including this one) have secular plaques, painted in a rough, folk-art style, with putti and archaically spelled mottos relating to love. The other three bindings with secular motifs are the Pistner binding (which is empty), and two other filigree examples, both bound over Jewish or Hebrew manuscripts: one is in a private Swiss collection, and the other (in which the plaque inscriptions are in Italian) is held by Penn State University (acquired from us). All four of these ?secular? bindings have oddly shaped spines, some slightly deformed. This seems to be the result of reworking the spines to accommodate thinner text blocks than those for which they were originally intended. The design of the catches and joints of the present binding, and its filigree silverwork, are similar to the other filigree secular bindings. The plaques especially resemble those of the example in the Swiss collection; one of the central plaques shares the same inscription (here Rien m[?]arrest; in the other binding Rien m[?]arreste). However, the fine condition and perfectly rounded spine of this binding may also point to some 19th-century restoration. Bookbindings of silver and previous metal were kept and reused through generations, and thus often appear on much later books or manuscripts. This binding presently houses a 20th-century mildly erotic manuscript in French, on 10 vellum leaves, the title Cantique de Salomon in a crowned frame, the 9 following leaves containing amateurish pencil and watercolor drawings with one- or two-line captions, on rectos o.…