Considering Individual Features of Stamps of Gold Tooling in Attribution of Russian Bindings of the 18th century

Book bindings of the 18th century, like all bindings of the period of hand press, are unique objects of individual labour, they were made to order and could be done much later than the date of printing. Russian bindings of this time are overwhelmingly anonymous, do not have the stamp and signature of the bookbinder or any written evidence of the binding customer, which makes it difficult to attribute them.

The Department of Rare Books (Book Museum) of the Russian State Library (RSL) stores books by a major collector of the 18th century P.K. Khlebnikov, bound in the late 1750s — 1780s in one bookbinding workshop. The owner sought to record in super-exlibrises his career growth and changes in social status, and it helps to date the binding work within a frame of few years. The bindings were decorated with gold embossing using different stamps and roles. Over time, the bookbinderʼs tools were enriched, new stamps were used in embossing, and the old ones were put out of use. Linking the use of a particular stamp to a specific time helps to date other similar bindings made in the same workshop.

So, impressions of stamps that came into use no earlier than 1775 were identified on the bindings of books from the library of Prince I.A. Vyazemsky. Identical prints are also found on bindings from other collections. The article provides an example of Russian edition of the 1730s in a luxurious morocco binding with a similar embossing. Information about the stamps used in P.K. Khlebnikovʼs bindings assisted to significantly adjust the time of the masterʼs work and date the binding to the second half of the 1770s — 1780s.

Thus, it is obvious that the identification value of individual stamps of gold tooling when describing the bindings of the 18th century is high. The detailed description of decorative elements with photofixation of prints, the creation of a kind of stamp bank would make it possible to identify other arrays of bindings of close origin, and biographical knowledge about the owners would help both in the localization of hypothetically reconstructed bookbinding workshops and in more accurate dating of samples.

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