[Fine Binding | Lucien Broca] Modern Painters

Ruskin, John. Modern Painters [5 volumes in 4]. London: Smith, Elder & Co., 1851-60. Volume 1 is a fifth edition, volume 2 [bound with volume 1] is a fourth edition, volumes 3 through 5 are first editions. Illustrated throughout with plates after engravings, sepia-tones, drawings, charts, vignettes, etc. Bound in deep green crushed morocco by Lucien Broca with elaborately gilt frames to covers, outer gilt flower & leaf gilt frame flanked with thick blind tooled rules, with inner frame accented with elaborate stamped fleurons in gilt at corners and center of frame. Five bands to spine, with title and author in second and third compartments and elaborate floral tooling to remaining compartments. Dense gilt rolled turn-ins, with yellow and green mottled endpapers. All edges gilt. Measures approx. 7.25" x 10.25". Spines lightly sunned (as is typical with this shade of green, the most fugitive of the dyes used during the period). Offsetting to endpapers, some foxing to first few pages.

"Master binder Lucien Broca was a Frenchman who came to London to work for Antoine Chatelin, and from 1876 to 1889 he was in partnership with Simon Kaufmann. From 1890 he appears under his own name in Shaftesbury Avenue, and in 1901 he was at Percy Street, calling himself an 'Art Binder.' He was recognized as a superb trade finisher, and Marianne Tidcombe has confirmed that he actually executed most of Sarah Prideaux's bindings from the mid-1890s" (David Brass).

As is the case with all Broca bindings that come to market, a simply gorgeous example of bookbinding.

*Due to the size, there will be an additional shipping charge for this set.