[DCRM-L] FW: [EXLIBRIS-L] Seeking leather bookbinding ID references

[Deborah J. Leslie]

Most of you will perhaps have seen this, but for those who haven't: it's
one of the reasons I advise catalogers against using the binding
descriptor "morocco." It has meant a number of things over time. In
addition, there is a species continuum between sheep and goats. I am all
anticipation of the binding glossary promised by NP.

 

__________

Deborah J. Leslie, M.A., M.L.S. | Head of Cataloging, Folger Shakespeare
Library
djleslie at folger.edu <mailto:djleslie at folger.edu>  | 202.675-0369 |
www.folger.edu

 

 

 

-----Original Message-----
From: Rare book and manuscripts [mailto:EXLIBRIS-L at LISTSERV.INDIANA.EDU]
On Behalf Of Nicholas Pickwoad
Sent: Monday, July 18, 2011 04:20
To: EXLIBRIS-L at LISTSERV.INDIANA.EDU
Subject: Re: [EXLIBRIS-L] Seeking leather bookbinding ID references

 

I would like to inject a small note of warning into the discussion  

about using modern samples of leather for the identification of  

historic leathers used on books. The animals whose skins were used  

have changed over the centuries, and the hairsheep that was one of the  

most common sources of leathers for the booktrade will not feature  

among modern samples. This is important for the identification of  

skins on books, as it is these skins that are the hardest to identify  

(calf and pig are, by comparison, quite straightforward) as the skins  

of animals bearing coarse wool hairs as well a fine ones produce skins  

that are virtually identical to goatskin. The modern sheep, bred  

increasingly to eliminate the coarse wool hairs, has a skin that is  

entirely different in appearance.

 

The problem is compounded, not simplified, by the term 'morocco'. In  

France the term 'maroquin' was used to describe the highest quality  

skins of the type today found in northern Nigeria. Following the  

traditional habit of the European leather trades, the skin was named  

after the country from which it was shipped, in this case Morocco,  

where the native-dyed skins or possibly undyed crusts, were given  

final treatments, including dyeing, before export. It was for this  

reason that the same skins were known as 'Turkey leather' in Britain,  

as British merchants were only allowed to trade with the Ottoman  

empire through the port of Smyrna (modern Izmir). The British leather  

trade used the word  'morocco'  for the skins traditionally thought to  

have been procured in the 1720s for Edward Harley in Fez in an attempt  

to make good the short supply of Turkey leather in the early  

eighteenth century. The skins were bright and colourful and were  

imported directly from Morocco (hence the name), but were taken from  

hairsheep, not goats, and they have proved much less durable. The  

English booktrade maintained the distinction between 'turkey' and  

'morocco' leathers until at least the 1780s.

 

Any sample book must, if it is to be helpful, use macro-photographs of  

genuine period skins identified by experts in such matters, but when  

Ronald Read (author of Ancient Skins, Parchments and Leathers, already  

cited in this correspondence and still far and away the best book on  

the subject currently available) admits that telling goat from  

hairsheep skins can be impossible by visual examination only, we need  

to be very careful in jumping to conclusions. Our ongoing work in the  

Ligatus Research Centre on a glossary of bookbinding terms is to  

include a set of such photographs, but that is, I am afraid, a year or  

two away as yet.

 

Nicholas Pickwoad

 

 

Professor Nicholas Pickwoad, River Farm, Great Witchingham,Norwich,  

NR9 5NA.

E-mail: npickwoad at paston.co.uk

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