BEAUTIFUL WOMEN: IN EXQUISITE COSWAY-STYLE BINDING BY SANGORSKI & SUTCLIFFE, SPLENDIDLY ILLUSTRATED, THE DOHENY COPY

(BINDING) ERSKINE, Beatrice (Mrs. Steuart). Beautiful Women in History & Art. London: George Bell & Sons (Hallett Hyatt), 1905. Tall, thick quarto, mid-20th-century full red morocco, raised bands, elaborately gilt-decorated and inlaid spine, gilt cover borders, inlaid centerpieces, red and green morocco doublure inset with Cosway-style watercolor miniature surrounded by eight small pearls, watered-silk free endpapers, all edges gilt. Housed in a custom clamshell box.

Spectacular edition of “these portraits of beautiful women, seen against a background of history,” with 38 rich photogravures of contemporaneous paintings, including portraits of Madame de Pompadour, Marie Antoinette, Lady Hamilton and Joan of Arc. Luxuriously bound by Sangorski & Sutcliffe in the Cosway style, with beautiful inlaid centerpieces and splendid watercolor painting of Joan of Arc set into the doublure. From the famous Doheny library, sold in 1987.

Cosway bindings (named in 1909 for renowned 19th-century English miniaturist Richard Cosway) were the brainchild of John Harrison Stonehouse, managing director of London booksellers Henry Sotheran & Company, who in 1902 struck on the idea of embedding miniature paintings in the covers of richly-tooled bindings. He engaged the famous Rivière bindery to execute his idea in accordance with his own designs. Rivière brought into its employ Miss C.B. Currie with instructions to faithfully imitate Richard Cosway’s detailed watercolor style of miniature painting. These delicate and beautiful miniatures were set into the covers (or sometimes doublures) of fine bindings and protected with thin panes of glass. Cosway bindings executed by other than the original collaborators (Stonehouse, Sotheran, Rivière, and Currie) are designated as “Cosway-style” bindings— still splendid productions— by such esteemed binderies as Sangorski & Sutcliffe (as here), Morrell, Bayntun, and Bumpus. The work inside this lavish binding is Beatrice Erskine’s Beautiful Women in History & Art. In her preface she admits that “the selection is perhaps arbitrary, and the omissions are often much to be regretted, but it must be remembered that the field is a wide one.” This is the Doheny copy, with two of the family’s bookplates. Carrie Estelle Doheny was among the earliest female book collectors in the United States, having purchased her first rare book in 1931. Under the tutelage of Frank Hogan and A.S.W. Rosenbach she continued to buy books and manuscripts until her death in 1958. Her great collection, consisting of incunabula (including a Gutenberg Bible), Medieval and Renaissance manuscripts, Western Americana, early printing, literature, and fine bindings, was for many years housed at the Vincentian Seminary of St. John’s in Camarillo, California. She also gave parts of her collection to the Vincentian Seminary of St. Mary’s of the Barrens in Perryville, Missouri. In 1987 a decision was made by the Archdiocese of Los Angeles to return many of the Doheny treasures to the market. On October 22, 1987, Christie’s held its first of six separate sales, ultimately yielding $37,842.758.00 for some 2,300 lots. This book was among them, bringing at that time $8500.

A fine copy, in a spectacular “exhibition” binding.