Jewelled bookbinding

Jewelled bookbindings were used in the Middle Ages to cover important books, especially liturgical and devotional works for the church and kings. The vast majority of these bookbindings were later destroyed as their valuable gold and jewels were removed by looters, or the owners when in need of cash. Others survive without their jewels. Some still exist in major libraries - for example the Morgan Library in New York, the John Rylands Library in Manchester, the British Library in London and the Bibliothèque Nationale in Paris.

In about 1905 the English binders Sangorski & Sutcliffe reinvented Jewelled Bindings, as part of the revival of English decorated bookbindings. These were not large uncut gems as in Medieval times but semi-precious stones en cabochon set into beautifully designed bindings with multi-coloured leather inlays and elaborate gilt tooling. The craftsmanship of these bindings was unsurpassable; only their competitors Riviere produced work of similar quality. The most famous of these bindings "The Great Omar" on a large copy of FitzGerald's Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam had over 1,000 jewels; it went down with the Titanic. The largest collection of these masterpieces was the Phoebe Boyle one; over 100 jewelled bindings were sold in 1923. Jewelled bindings occasionally appear at auction; literature on them is surprisingly scant given their superb quality.