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Islamic book bindings

Preface

ISLAMIC BOOK BINDINGS

Like so many of the Victoria and Albert Museum’s acquisitions, this magnificent collection of Islamic bookbindings was built up by some very discerning collectors in the last twenty-five years of the nineteenth century.

Indeed, no less than ninety-nine bindings, some still attached to very fine manuscripts came into the Museum’s possession during those two and a half decades.

Some of the most outstanding examples of Persian and Ottoman Turkish workmanship were bought during that period and at a time when the little study had been undertaken of this particular aspect of Islamic book technique, they bear witness to the taste and discerning eye of many of the Museum’s benefactors.

Among them was Major-General Sir Robert Murdoch Smith. He was Director of the Persian Telegraph Department at Tehran for twenty years and while in Persia purchased a large number of Persian objets d’art for the South Kensington Museum, as the Victoria and Albert Museum was then called.

 In 1885 on his retirement, he became Director of the Science and Art Museum in Edinburgh (now the Royal Scottish Museum) which also benefitted from his collections. Another benefactor was Sidney Churchill.

He was Secretary to Murdoch Smith in Persia and later became British Consul-General in Palermo and Naples. During his long career abroad he assembled a large and varied library including many outstanding Islamic works.

Since the turn of the century, an irregular but continuing number of Islamic book covers has been acquired by the Museum and two years ago the National Art Library was very fortunate to buy a collection of thirty-one, predominantly Arab, book covers which had once been in the possession of the late Dr Bernhard Moritz.

Other parts of the collection of this noted German Orientalist, who spent fifteen years in Cairo as head of the Khedivial Library, are now in the two Islamic Museums in Berlin, the Chester Beatty Library in Dublin and the Oriental Institute at the University of Chicago.

This group of book covers is of great importance for any study of styles of decoration and the use of differing motifs in Arab book ornamentation.

In 1981 twelve Arab and Persian bindings were bought which had formerly been in the collection of the Hagop Kevorkian Fund and these are especially valuable in adding to our knowledge of different techniques and decoration.

 Earlier this year a fine Ottoman book cover which had once been in the possession of the great Orientalist, Dr F R Martin, was bought by the Library and this acquisition considerably enhanced the Turkish section of bindings.

The majority of bindings in the Museum’s possession are loose covers which in part is a reflection on the different sewing techniques used in the Islamic world which often led to the binding coming apart from the text block.

In some cases glue was used to attach the binding to the spine of the book which was even less secure.

 Some of the bindings were acquired as a single group, such as the thirty-five Arab covers bearing the inventory number 366-1888. It is interesting to note that these were bought in Egypt for fourteen pounds sterling! Incidentally some of the attributions, particularly those given to some of the Arab collection, were made by Dr Moritz during a visit to London in 1910 and in many cases these attributions need no alteration.

There are also some bindings still attached to their original manuscripts. If the manuscript retains its colophon, this enables a known date and location to be given to a particular