Gold-TooledBookbindings

AndContemporaryCollectables.1500 – 1800.

Chapter 11: Spirals, Pawls, Scalesand Scallops

By Ian Andrews

340

September 2013.

ianandrews00@gmail.com

50, Wellhouse Lane, Mirfield

West Yorkshire WF14 0PN

SPIRALS, PAWLS, SCALES and

SCALLOPS

The focus of this chapter is a disparate group of decorative

motifs all of which are derived in some geometrical fashion

from a circular origin. Circles and spirals are closely

related since both result from rotating a line around a

central point. For circles the length of the line remains the

same while for spirals the line gets longer as it is rotated

around the pivot point. A circle is therefore a special type

of spiral. There are two obvious possible forms of spiral. In

one, described in this book as a ‘round curl’, the line

increases in length at a steady rate producing a spiral like a

coil of rope while in the other the length of the line

increases at a faster rate so that the shape of the spiral

opens up much faster, like the form of an ear or a sea-shell.

The decorative devices included in this chapter are all based

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on the use of circular or spiral elements. Scale and scallop

designs are based on the use of circular arcs, Pawls and Swag

Tails are ornamental items that consist of a leaf form

attached to a small spiral and the ornamental construction

described as Flutings, which appears on some bindings of the

eighteenth century appears as a column of leaves scrolled

around a central pillar is the side view that results from

pulling out the centre of a linear spiral.

The simplest of these designs are those known as ‘Scallops’

and ‘Scales’. While both are developments of circular arcs

their use in designs is totally different. The term, ‘Scallop’

has commonly been used to describe chains of shallow loops,

such as the decorative edging of garments while, when

similarly shaped elements are arranged in multiple layers they

have been referred to as ‘Scales’.

Scallops:

The scalloping effect is seen in the gold designs on

bookbindings, particularly Persian ones from the fifteenth and

sixteenth centuries where it is most often used to enhance the

outline of the central medallion. While the inclusion of

similar part-circular elements were included in Italian

single-line lozenge designs of the earlier sixteenth century,

which Hobson has described as, ‘undulating’,i this style of

ornamentation on Western European bindings is much more a

decorative feature of the two succeeding centuries. The

repetition of deep scalloped forms, like hoops, right around

the outer border is quite a common decorative structure on

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both seventeenth and eighteenth century English bindings. On

these bindings, the scalloping tends to be semi-circular and

so fundamental in shape and heavily tooled as almost to appear

‘rustic’. Borders of this ‘hooped’ style occur on bindings

from the beginning of the second quarter of the seventeenth

century until the end of the century with the most common

usage being in the period between 1630 and 1690. Starting from

the mid-century, the shallower form appears to have been in

favour until the middle of the third quarter and again in the

eighteenth century, particularly between 1750 and 1770.

Strictly it might be more correct to refer to this shallow

form as a chain of catenaries, which is the profile of a

hanging chain or garland rather than hoops, which implies full

semi-circular elements. Such shapes were a particular feature

of designs beginning around 1660 and rising to a sharp peak

around 1705 with steady residual occurrence on bindings

between 1740 to 90. Catenaries often appear as chains of husks

and very occasionally as small festoons of foliage. Where they

appear as simple curved elements the lines are often doubled,

giving the appearance of tramlines, and the designs on a few

eighteenth century bindings are dominated by a small number of

very large double-catenaries or

citrons.

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Figure 1. A bookbinding from Valencia, believed to have been bound soon after 1566.The cover design is constructed

from four wide pyramids of semi-circular hoops which together

occupy virtually the entire cover area. The spears that extend

inwards from these pyramids are flames and on this account,

the style has been called the, ‘Fish Scale and Flame’ design.

Figure 2. R Allestree, The Ladies Calling, Oxford 1677. Doubled border of semi-

circular hoops.

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Figure 3. Francis Sandford, Scuta Suprema 1656. Bound for Oliver Cromwell. The

design features a scalloped border, in the ‘tramline’ style with lace

edging and centre panel and a profusion of daisy heads.

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Figure 4. Le Faculte Vengee French Parisian binding of 1747. This mosaic

design has been attributed to the l’Atelier à la Tulipe, and is based on

constructions of citron shapes.

Scales:

‘Scale’ is the usual name for a small motif of approximately

semi-circular shape which most commonly occurs in pyramid-

shaped groups. Scales first appear on bindings from the 1580s

and are commonly observed from around 1600 until the end of

the eighteenth century. As a favoured motif however, its

popularity was outstanding in the period from 1660 to 1690,

with a great peak around 1675. Usage of the Scales motif in

this vogue period was entirely English while before 1660, of

the very few examples seen, virtually all were Spanish and by

the end of the seventeenth century, while still predominantly

an English conceit, it is observed on Austrian, French,

Italian and Scottish bindings.

In terms of the style and usage of scale patterns, in the

period 1660-90 pyramids are the most common whereas from 1640

till about 1670 and to a lesser degree after 1720, scales were

employed more for general infilling of empty areas. During the

1660s individual scales are either semi-circular, rather

heavily impressed and badly aligned or else were made using a

very fine tool spanning considerably less than 180°. By the

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end of the decade the quality of alignment had improved so

that the pyramids appear symmetrical and with straight edges

instead of the rather ‘berry-like’ groups of some of those

from the early 1660s. In the 1670s the style of groups of

scales seems to have reflected that of the rest of the design.

On punto-in-aria lace designs the scales are round and solid

whereas on gossamer lace design they give the appearance of a

fine net-like fabric.

From the start of the eighteenth century, pyramids of scales

appear always to be decorated with a dot or small motif inside

each scale. While this practice was commonly used to ornament

scales it is seen much less often applied to scalloped

edgings.

Figure 5. A pyramid of scales from a Scottish binding ofRamsay’s Poems, 1723.

Despite its essential simplicity as a decorative motif the

shape of a scale has many long-standing symbolic associations

all of which appear viable but unverifiable. The assumption

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that they might represent the scales of a fish seems

reasonable yet there are more artefacts from past

civilizations in which they have been used unmistakably to

simulate the appearance of feathers. In this context there is

considerable equivalence between the appearance of scales

enhanced with small internal motifs and contemporary portrayal

of the eyes on peacock feathers. At this time peacock tail

feathers appear to have been quite readily available.

Liturgical fans, made from peacock tail feathers were a

feature of church ritual and ceremonial processions. A record

in the Walberswick Churchwardens’ Accounts for 1493 contains

an entry for, “a bessume of pekok’s fethers having been bought in that year

for ivd,” four pennies in old English coinage. Pyramids of scales

are included in many of the enamelled book covers made in

Limoges and the use of colour in the centres of each scale

might give credence to this interpretation. Another possible

origin might be that they represent peoples’ heads. It is not

unusual in frescos of this period to see crowds of people

depicted by massed arrays of half-loops, each with a central

face. Equally the appearance of this motif has been

interpreted as representing flowing water in carvings

discovered at the Assyrian capital of Nineveh and a pyramid of

three scales has been suggested by Coomaraswamy as

representing Mount Meru, the name given in later Vedic

literature to the ‘mountains of the gods’ii and by Irwiniii as

symbollising the primordial hill from which all life-forms

developed.

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Figure 6. Angel reliquaryfrom St. Sulpice-les-Feuilles

c1150. The green and blue

scales in champleve enamel

work at the top of the wings

is typical of the way in

which feathers were shown in

a variety of artworks of this

period.iv

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Figure 7. Depiction of water using coloured scales from a reliquary ofThomas Becket 1195-1200.

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SPIRALS:

The most common usage of the round variety on bookbindings was

in contra-rotating pairs tied together with short bar

linkages. Sea-shell spirals were more usually deployed in

massed arrays and never in tied pairs though pairs arranged to

form ‘heart’ or ‘kidney’ shapes are not unusual as ornamental

features. Both forms of the spiral can be stacked in vertical

columns provided each succeeding spiral is a mirror image of

the one beneath. For the round, or linear, spiral such a

vertical column is in effect an abstract form of the Roman

‘White Vine’ pattern and resulting columns have the general

appearance of a set of circular pieces. A similar arrangement

of sea-shell spirals does not produce such a visually

satisfying result and such structures are not usual features

of designs on bookbindings. However, if several such vertical

strip arrays of sea-shell spirals are placed side by side a

unified decorative background structure is created that is

capable of infinite extension and which can carry additional

decorative ornamentation. Spatial decoration based on sea-

shell spirals is the most versatile in-fill technique used in

the gold-tooling of bookbindings and has been exploited with

particular success in the representation of many kinds of

lace.

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Figure 8. A section of an ivory bookcover believed to

have been carved by Tuotilo at the

monastery of St. Gall around 900. The

design includes ties and leaves as

central ornaments in the contra-

rotating vine-stem, spirals. The stems

flare like cornucopeae and have

crockets in the style of curling

tendrils of climbing plants.

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Figure 9 . Italian binding c1675 with a lacy border and fancorner pieces. Sea-shell spirals and scales have been used to

achieve uniform decoration that completely fills all the main

compartments.

Appearance and Origins: Linear or

Round Curl Spirals:

Round curls appear in the gold designs on bookbindings from

the beginning of the second quarter of the sixteenth century.

The time periods when their use appears to have been most

popular were between 1540-70 and 1580-90.The first of these

periods, that around the mid-century coincides with the final

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phase of the two-ring pattern. In the seventeenth century the

motif continued in general use with a peak in the period 1670-

80. In the eighteenth, they are less common and are usually

enhanced either with natural style leaves or Paisley ones. In

most application, the round spiral tends to be drawn with one

and a half turns. From the beginning of the sixteenth century

binding designs had frequently incorporated long curling

arabesque stems, with stylised leaves, that meandered over

large areas of the board, but though curling through a full

360° rotation, did not describe a circular path. Instead,

until the mid-century, the spiralling curls of these long thin

stems were very much flattened circles. Whilst an initial

response to seeing these non-circular scrolling forms might

justifiably have assumed them to have been the result of poor

layout by the gold-worker, the occurrence of almost precisely

the same forms decorating important architectural structures

such as the Taj Mahal for example, would appear to indicate

that such shapes had not occurred by default but by specific

intent.

By the second half of the sixteenth century the long curling

stems of the earlier period had evolved into two more

geometrically precise forms. One led to the very round spiral

features while the other appears to have evolved more

particularly from the use of stylised leaves on meandering

stems. In the absence of geometrical constraints, these latter

stems were allowed to wander, to undulate and to branch with

impunity and the use of leaves for their ornamentation

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increased, this process resulting in the flounce lace designs

of the later sixteenth century.

.v

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Figure 10. Round Curl spiral set with precious stones, inthe manner described as ‘dotting’, on a silver goblet dating

from the 2nd millennium BC, discovered in the Kurukh-Tash

Barrow at Trialeti in Georgia

Figure 11. A parade armour helmet by Negrolo dated 1543showing the very large and highly ornate round curl features

that dominate the elaborate decoration on the helmet.

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Patterns based on arrangements of round, foliate forms often

tied together and having internal crockets and a large central

leaf are quite common on carved ivory bookcovers from the

ninth century. The panels carved by Tuotilo around 900 at the

monastery of St. Gall show very clearly the manner in which

the natural growth habit of a vine or similar stem could be

used to create an infinite series of similarly curling, spin-

offs, each being an ideal frame for ornamentation.vi A form

with both beading and crockets occurs on a ceiling decoration

in Palermo dated to 1154-66. Various forms of heavily foliated

round curls appear on carved ivory caskets from 10th century

Spain and the 12th century silver-gilt Palo d’Ora altar screen

from Byzantiumvii. Such features were also an effective surface

decoration on treasure bindings where large areas of gold

plate were ornamented with round curls of filigree goldwork.

Round curls of iron were nailed to a wooden coffer from the

Abbey of St. Denis in Paris attributed to the 13th century and

similar ones nailed to the doors of Merton College, Oxford

around 1300viii. Filippo Negrolo of Milan, “whose work at

chasing arms in iron with foliage and figures……has given him

great fame”, lived from 1510-79 and was famous for the

elaborate and extravagantly embossed parade armour he made for

the greatest men of the age from 1530 to about 1550ix. By the

late sixteenth century Isfahan had become one of the largest

and most magnificent cities in the world with a population of

about one million people. Famous for its carpets, pottery and

textiles, the city attracted merchants from all parts of the

world. Stonor has described great arabesques wheeling

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majestically over turquoise domes in black and white and lapis

lazuli producing an effect that, “for only having set eyes on

such splendour life is for ever enriched.” The dome of the

Madraseh Chahar Bagh in Isfahan has round curling arabesques

all over the dome while precise round spirals fill the

spandrels of the main entranceway demonstrating the importance

of these two design motifs in the ornamentation of the Safavid

capitalx. The gateway to the Golden Stairway between the church

of St. Catherine and the Upper Cathedral in Moscow is

fashioned from decorated round curl designs. According to

legend, these were cast in 1670 from copper coins that had

been removed from circulation after the Copper Revolt though

the grille was actually made from wrought iron and covered

with metallic gold and silver lustrexi. The manufacture of

these typified the great enthusiasm for magnificent metal

gateways that was sweeping Europe in the late seventeenth and

early eighteenth centuries. Jean Tihou, a French Protestant

who had escaped religious persecution by living and working in

England, 1689–1712, was the leading designer and great round

curling spirals with central flower motifs were a major

element in many of his designsxii. Artistry in the designs of

wrought iron gateways may well have been as influential in the

designs on book covers of the seventeenth century as Italian

armour and the architecture and carpets of Isfahan had been in

the previous one. Decorative features in the style of the

‘Crestings’ above these gates may be observed in designs on

bookbindings in the garden style where their placement as

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ornamentation at the ends of the major axes of the designs

correspond with the locations of these gateways.

Figure 12. The portal grilles between St. Catherines Churchand the Upper Cathedral in Moscow. 1670.

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Figure 13. Titus Livius: Historicorum Omnium Romanorumbound in Rome 1588

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Figure 14. The design on this book clearly shows themanner in which large multi-turn round curls were used in

opposing pairs. They each have motifs at their centres and are

beaded with lotus scale leaves and scrolling crockettsxiii. The

background to this design consists of an unusual in-filling of

dotted half scales that create the appearance of a heavy

knitted type of lace ground stitch.

Decoration Generally:

On bookbindings, round curl spirals are usually enhanced with

one or more of the following additions, beading, dotting,

crockets or a central leaf and occasionally pairs of them may

be linked with a tie bar or equivalent. Pairs of spirals with

tie bar linking are typical of the mid-sixteenth century but

not the seventeenth when plain spirals are the more usual form

while being extremely unusual in the previous. By the end of

the first quarter of the sixteenth century, arabesque stems

were contrived into round curling spiral forms, adorned along

their length with naturalistic leafy crockets. During the362

second half of the sixteenth century short bars are often

observed joining pairs of spiral elements together in

precisely the manner in which scrolls of decorative ironwork

were secured, but not infrequently those on bookbindings were

considerably more ornate with small conceits like bracelets

being not uncommon, as also ‘figure of eight knots’, short

coils, and lotus heads. In a couple of instances, on a Roman

binding of 1555 for example, the device employed was a crown

and there is equivalence between this appearance on a

bookbinding with the so-called, ‘Crowned Mullion’ designs on

textiles, Oriental rugs and in the damascened decoration of

sword hilts, particularly those from Toledo in Spain.xiv

From about 1580 spirals on bookbindings often have dots and

sometimes small circular studs, placed at intervals along the

length of their channel. These are most common on bindings of

the second quarter of the seventeenth century and occur

occasionally until the mid-1660s. From the 1620s until about

1670, round spirals tend to be crocketted along their internal

edges with stylised leaves of Paisley style as well as being

dotted.

Centre Ornament:

From its first appearance, on bindings of around 1540, the

round curl spiral was portrayed with a leaf at its centre.

Until the mid-sixteenth century this was of a lotus form,

became a fantasy leaf around mid-century and tended to the

acanthus form thereafter. Between 1540 and 1570 a two-petal

‘bell flower’ supported on a triple-leaf base was sometimes

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seen as the central motif. In the seventeenth century round

spirals tend to be very austere with no decorative

embellishments at all or else have a Paisley leaf or a feather

at the centre whereas from the 1640s, sea-shell spirals were

more usually embellished with fragments of acanthus leaf,

Paisley leaves, dots or crockets. After the mid-century a

daisy head was more common and a spiral having a branching

centre sprouting a pitcher motif like some kind of abstract

flower head was not unusual. The rather measured usage of

these decorative enhancements by binders of the later

sixteenth and seventeenth centuries contrasts with previous

usage of the motif where it appeared to have been the normal

practice to include a full range of additional embellishments.

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Figure 15. Ludovico Dolce, Le trasformationi c1555. An example of a

tie bar, in the style of a Crowned Mullion, securing the

rising stems from the Arabic Motif. Crowned mullion motifs in

the designs on Oriental carpets are very much more ornate and

in keeping with the appearance of ceremonial crowns.xv

By the mid-century, the spiral forms were more abstract in

appearance, more precisely drawn and with fat lotus, tri-

lobes, batwing and similar ‘fantasy’ motifs used for beading.

As the second half of the century progressed, the number of

beads seemed to increase. On some Roman bindings of the last

quarter, the motif employed for this beading ornamentation was

based on the lotus scale though by the turn of the century the

beads were often little more than dotted additions. On some

bindings from the turn of the century, there was a vogue for

stark, ultra-clear, round spirals. As a design element the

linear spiral appears visually to be more a purely geometric

entity than an intrinsically decorative motif. Its closeness

to a set of concentric circles can result in curious

interactions with the observer’s eyes, since there are certain

combinations of its structural dimensions that cause it to

appear to exert a hypnotic or ‘staring’ effect. This has been

noticed on occasional bindings of the seventeenth and

eighteenth centuries, but is very uncommon. When seen, this

effect is so striking that it is easy to understand how it has

been associated with the ‘evil eye’.xvi

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Figure 16. The design on in theherbaceous border style which includes a remarkably large

number of small ‘staring spirals’.

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Figure 17. Office de la Semaine Saincte, 1659 showing theeffect of using round curls as ‘in-fill’ which is gives the

impression of decorative ornaments displayed on polished

panels in contrast to other effects which can be contrived to

completely fill the available area.

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The Snail:

‘Snail’ is the term used to describe a small spiral device,

which while consisting of a non-linear spiral, is essentially

round. It appears to have been used almost entirely as a means

to decorate and to disguise junctures and corners of strapwork

and similar designs. They are observed on designs from the

middle of the sixteenth century until around the middle of the

seventeenth, mostly however before the end of the first

quarter of the seventeenth century.

While it was never embellished in the ways that round curls

were decorated, the snail was enhanced in a number of specific

ways that were characteristic of that motif and of the pawl to

which it appears to have been related. While the overall shape

was always maintained, the number of turns of its internal

spiralling varied from a minimum to nearly three turns, the

number of turns often seeming to be in proportion to the

calibre of the design. In the last quarter of the sixteenth

century snails are often seen with pointed conical extensions.

It is likely that the shape of these ‘beaked’ snails

represents an intention to indicate three-dimensionality. In

the first quarter of the seventeenth century they are found

embellished with a small ring which is also a form of

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ornamentation that is observed applied exclusively to both the

snail and the pawl towards the end of the first quarter.

Figure 18. La Sainte Bible bound in Paris 1568.

In this design the corners of the two compartments, linked by

a bar,

are ornamented with small snail-like decorations.

During the course of the first quarter, the pawl tended to

replace the snail as the motif of choice for the disguising of

junctures and intersectionsxvii. On some Vatican bindings of the

late mid-century snails are not positioned to disguise a

junction but rather placed adjacent to one and embellished

with a streaking effect in a crude simulation of three-

dimensional perspective in the same way as was applied to

pawls. At the same period, snails were ornamented with a

series of dots along the entire outer edge, giving them a sort

of scaly or reptilian appearance and was an effect often used

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in illuminated manuscripts and was also a feature of the

representation of the flower stem of the lotus. Exactly the

same technique is seen in eighteenth century bindings of the

late third quarter, where it is applied to unwinding sea-shell

spirals giving them the appearance of an unfurling flower

head. Snails are commonly seen in the foliage borders of the

eighteenth century where they were presumably used to create

the impression of imminent blossoming of a flower bud.

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Appearance and Origins: Logarithmic

or Sea-Shell Spirals:

Whereas the major period of popularity of the round curl

spiral was the mid- and later- sixteenth century, the sea-

shell spiral does not begin to become noticeable until the

second quarter of the seventeenth rising suddenly at the mid-

century to a major peak in the third quarter and continuing in

significant usage until the 1730s and to a lesser degree

beyond, through the 1760s and 1770s. It is tempting to

speculate on the coincidence in time of this sudden popularity

of the motif following, as it does so closely, the ‘discovery’

of the logarithmic spiral by Descartes. More correctly,

Descartes, 1596-1650, did not invent the shape but deduced the

mathematical techniques by which it could be analysed and

constructed. One of its unique properties is that while it

grows larger

its shape remains

the same. This so

fascinated Jacob

Bernoulli that he

called it Spira

mirabilis. The

growth patterns

and

behaviours of many plants and natural phenomena are very close

approximations to the shape of this spiral. The potential for

finding correlations between this new exciting development in371

mathematics, following the publication of Descartes’ La

Géométrie in June 1637 created a flurry of interest with people

obsessed with identifying the characteristics of the spiral in

all manner of natural forms.

Figure 19. Cureau de la Chambre. A Parisian binding of c1650 in

the fanfare style to show the degree to which in-fill

decoration based on sea-shell spirals could be contrived to

fit the precise shape of complex compartments.

As an element in the gold designs on book covers, while the

round spiral had tended to be executed with strong lines, sea-

shell spirals were almost invariably lighter and more

delicately impressed. From their earliest appearance in the

1630s, usage of the motif rose to a major peak in popularity

that extended from about 1660 to 1690 after which it slowly

diminished in use until the end of the eighteenth century. The

sea-shell spiral is often observed tooled ‘au pointillé’ while it

is extremely rare to see this technique applied to the round

form. Round curl spirals most commonly appear as primary372

motifs in a design while the sea-shell was more usually

employed as a subsidiary element, most often, as massed

infill, particularly on the ‘fanfare’ style of bindings though

there are a few instances, in the second quarter of the

eighteenth century, when round spirals were used in this

wayxviii. Both types of motif were, on occasion, used in pairs,

two round spirals of opposite rotation being coupled together

and two sea-shell spirals placed in close proximity to create

a heart or kidney shape in much the same manner as a pair of

fantasy leaves based on the lotus scale, had been used in the

mid-sixteenth century to create the appearance of a tulip

flower. The occurrence of these two, coupled versions of the

sea-shell spiral occur in much the same pattern as that of the

motif itself, generally, heart and kidney-shaped pairs were in

particular favour from about 1670 to 1690 and remained in less

common use until the end of the first quarter of the

eighteenth century.

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Figure 20. A design in which the major feature was createdaround sea-shell spirals in heart-shaped pairs.

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The Pawl:

This curiously shaped little motif, which often appears in the

gold designs on bookbindingsxix has been called a ‘pawl’ on the

basis of the similarity of its shape with that of an item

commonly used as a locking device in engineering gear systems.

It consists of a round curl, usually of about two turns and

having its tip flowing outwards into a leafy extension. The

leafy section is pennate with two, three or four divisions.

The length of the leafy extension equals and usually exceeds

the diameter of the circular section. The pawl is most often

observed as an ‘empty’ motif, that is, it is impressed by a

gold outline only. Very few pawls tooled in solid gold are

known.

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Figure 21. Plato’s, Opera, A Parisian binding of 1561.

The compartments in the early strapwork design shown in Figure

22, have many ornamental additions including perspective

scrolls and leafy epaulette-style volutes. In particular the

corner features are enhanced with snails, small pawls and

ringed circles. The compartment in the top centre has a pair

of large ‘ringed’ pawls with three-dimensional scrolls. The

degree of perspective on these pawls is so exaggerated as to

make their spatial sections appear extraordinarily massive. By

comparing the relative shapes of the snails, leafy epaulettes

and the pawl, it is possible to consider that the pawl may

have been the result of the combination of a snail and an

epaulette. Since the snail predates the pawl and is very

similar in appearance to the scrolling terminations of the

straps this may be a viable explanation to account for the

rather curious form of the pawl.

Pawls are commonly observed on bindings from the late

sixteenth century, c1580 until the end of the eighteenth and

most frequently on bindings of the first quarter of the

seventeenth century and from 1640 to 1650. When the pennate

divisions of the empty leafy tail can be counted, it is often

found that the date of the binding correlates well with the

number of divisions, the more divisions the later the binding.

Number of Pennate Most likely period of

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Divisions binding. Two leaf

divisions

1585 -

1645 Three leaf

divisions

1665 –

1705 Four leaf

divisions

1725 -

1740

In the third quarter of the sixteenth century, many versions

of the pawl are observed, from simple two-dimensional outlined

forms to flat leafy extensions attached to three-dimensional

rolls. In the seventeenth century they were employed far more

widely than the snail. They were often very beautifully drawn

and though still used to disguise joins in strapwork ribbons,

they are often found as decorative elements in larger areas of

massed decoration. Beaked forms similar to the beaked snails,

are seen on both English and Parisian bindings of the late

sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries. In the later

seventeenth century, pawls sometimes appear as comparatively

crude developments of a perspective scroll. In this form the

tail section tends to be indicated merely by a few short gouge

strokes making it appear more like a brush than the usual

leafy form. The first appearance of this seems to be on a

Roman binding dedicated to Pope Blessed Innocent XI, 1676-89xx.

Pawls drawn in the same manner appear on another Rome binding

bearing the arms of Pope Clement XI, 1700-21xxi, indicating

perhaps that this treatment of the motif was a ‘speciality’ of

that particular Rome bindery or alternatively a preferred

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motif of the person commissioning the binding.

The occurrence of ringed pawls also generally coincides with

that of the ringed snail, that being the first quarter of the

seventeenth century. In the later seventeenth century isolated

pawls begin to be observed used as decorative floaters adding

visual effect to more basic patterns, while in the early

eighteenth century the use of strings of pawls for this

purpose is a major constituent of a design. Designs are known

from the eighteenth century in which sophisticated central

medallions have been constructed from arrangements of pawls

and drawer handles.

Figure 22. Three-dimensional pawls on the centralelliptical frame and beaked pawls on the outer ones, from a

fanfare design of c1575.

378

Figure 23. Juvenale Satirum Libri V. Parisian binding ofc1616. The strapwork compartments of this design are linked

with round windows and ornamented with a mixture of snails and

pawls, some of which are adorned with tiny rings.

379

Figure 24. Taylor J, Antiquitates Christianae. A London binding of

1703 in the garden style in which the central feature is

enhanced with a ring of pawls.

Leaf Tails or Swag Tails:

It is appropriate to make a connection between the thoroughly

artificial pawl motif and a similar motif of the second half

of the eighteenth century. Both are composed from a round

spiral and a leafy extension. In the case of the pawl, the

leafy extension is essentially abstract or perhaps in an

immature stage of growth whereas on the Leaf Tail or Swag Tail

, the foliar part is a fully mature acanthus leaf or leafy

spray. This motif first appears in the first decade of the

eighteenth century but increased rapidly to a sharp peak of

extreme popularity around the mid-century while diminishing

during the last quarter.

380

Figure 25. Fables choisies, La Fontaine 1755-59. Swag-tailed leaves,

as in the upper section of this border, exhibit the common

characteristic appearance of the motif, that is the

acanthuslike foliage and the scrolling stem that terminates in

a round bobble.

‘Meissen’ Scrolls:

381

This term has been used to describe a variety of small pattern

elements consisting of crossed scrolls of very particular

form. They occur primarily in the designs on French bindings

of the mid- eighteenth century.

Figure 26. Caii Sallustii Crispi quae exstant opera, a French Parisian

binding of 1754,

The design on this binding exhibits three types of this motif,

the large one at the mid-point of the edge, a smaller one in

the corner and four miniature curvi-linear squares. The shapes

of these typify the general appearance of this group of

scrolling ornaments.

382

The origin of these small scrolled or quilled lattice

structures appears to have been the decoration on the white

porcelain table-ware produced by the Royal Saxony Porcelain

Manufactory at Meissen. Following two sumptuous embassies from

the Court of the King of Siam, bearing gifts to the French

King Louis XIV’s Court at Versailles in 1684 and 1686. The

gifts they brought, cups and ewers of gold and lacquer, crates

of porcelain and bales of embroidered silks fueled a

widespread compulsive enthusiasm for the façon de la Chine. Fetes

were held in the Chinese style to celebrate the Chinese New

Year, people dressed as Eastern potentates, fashionable hats

became pointed and it became the norm for people to furnish

their homes in the oriental style and to display their

collections of curios and elegances to satisfy their

fascination with the East. Even though the French were

enjoying a craze for Chinoiserie, according to the Duchesse

d’Orléans, their enthusiasm was restrained compared to the

unbridled response in Germany where, she wrote, “Germany not only

imitates France but always does double what is done here”.xxii The leader of

the Chinese cult in Germany was Augustus the Strong, King of

Poland and Elector of Saxony who had such a passion for

Chinese porcelain that he had a Dutch palace converted into a

Chinese one to house his collection and in 1710 established

the Royal Saxon Porcelain Manufactory at Meissen. By 1715 the

Meissen factory was producing true, white-bodied porcelain

which was decorated less in Chinese style than in that of

European baroque silverware. The designs on Meissen tableware

of the 1720s and 30s included the special little lattice

383

features that were very characteristic of this factory’s

products and which is familiar also in the goldwork on

bookbindings. Of the examples of this ‘Meissen latticework’

observed during a recent study of designs on bookbindings, the

majority were believed to have been bound between 1740 and

1780 with the peak period in the 1750s.

384

i Hobson A Undulating lozenges.ii Coomaraswamy A K iii Irwin Asokan Pillars: A Re-assessment of the Evidence – III Capitals. p641.iv My Bk Enamel book p88.v Amiranashvili Shalva, Georgian Metalwork from Antiquity to the 18th Century. Pub Hamlyn, 1971 Fig 3 p 10.vi Fig 67 from J B Early Medieval Art Thames & Hudson 1969 p 78-9.vii Muraro M. & Grabar A. (1963) Treasures of Venice, Sunday Times Pub. Londonviii Headeke Hans-Ulrich, Metalwork pub. Weidenfeld & Nicolson 1970.ix This quote is from Vasari in his Lives of the Artists, published in 1550. For further information on

Negrolo and his armour see, Heroic Armour of the Italian Renaissance: Filipo Negrolo and his

contemporaries, Anon, Apollo Dec. 1998 p 12-16. For further use of roundcurls as decoration on

armour see, Bruno Thomas, Ortwin Gamber and Hans Schedelmann, Arms and Armour, Thames &

Hudson, London 1964 for example a Spanish Damascened sword hilt 1535-40 item 26. x Stonor F, An Introduction to Persian Architecture, Connoiseur, Dec. 1962 vol CLI No 610 p 220-25.xi Rodimzeva Irina et al, The Kremlin and its Treasures, pub. Phaidon Press, Oxford 1989 p 189.xii Drury E. ed. Antiques Pub. Macmillan, London 1969 p 176.xiii H M Fletcher Sales Catalogue Item 20 p 39. 201 Cardamom, 31 Shad Thames, London. xiv Thomas B., Gamber O. and Schedelmann H. Arms and Armour Thames & Hudson, London 1964 p25-7.xv Nixon H M, 16Cs of Gold-Tooled Bookbindings in the Pierrepont Morgan Library No 30 p111-114.xvi Westermarck E A, Magical Basis of Moorish Decorative Art, Journal of Anthropological Institute 2nd

Series, Vol vii 1904 pp45,211 and 222. Westermarck explains that the doctrine of the evil eye prevailed not only in Morocco and the Mediterranean countries but also in Persia and India.

xviiIt appears that both snails and pawls continued to be used on Vatican bindings beyond the time when the snail had tended to fall out of general fashion, which occurred around the end of the first quarter of the seventeenth century.

xviii Devaux Y. includes a picture of the fanfare style binding on La practique des Vertus Chretiennes which includes areas of massed round curls used for background decoration. P126.xix Use of the ‘pawl’ as a decorative motif was not limited to bookbindings. Pawls are often seen on

German parade armour of the mid- to late-sixteenth century. On one helmet a repetitive series of

pawls were used to produce a running pattern following around the edge of a visor. Helmut Nickel,

Arms and Armour through the Ages, Collins, London 1969 p76.

xx Sotheby’s catalogue for the sale, Continental Printed Books, Manuscripts and Music, London 27

November 1986 p48.xxi Sotheby’s catalogue for the sale, Fine Continental Books and Manuscripts, Science and Medicine,

London 5 December 1991 fig 255 p105-6.xxii Jacobson Dawn, Chinoiserie, Phaidon Press, London 1993 p 38.