John Constable Valley Farm color plate
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Constable's Valley Farm as printed in color by Leighton Brothers.
Alternative publisher's binding for Palgrave's Gems of Modern English Art
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Binding variant B: Was this binding designed by Leighton?  One issue that we face is assigning priority to either of the original cloth bindings. As far as I have been able to determine, there is no way to know which, if either, was first, or if the publisher originally offered different choices of bindings.
Rear cover of cloth binding on Masterpieces of English Art
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Back cover  binding variant A on Palgrave's book.
The color printed frontispiece to the volume reflects Victorian taste.
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The color printed frontispiece to the volume reflects Victorian taste.
The page opening of this spectacular color image shows the split in the binding as a result of the gutta-percha material used to bind the sheets into the original binding.
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The page opening of this spectacular color image shows the split in the binding as a result of the gutta-percha material used to bind the sheets into the original binding. The glue was not archival in the modern sense of some glues used in "perfect bindings," which are not sewn in signatures, and it has invariable rotted, requiring this aspect of the binding to need restoration.
A very special and highly unusual feature of the copy was this specially typeset presentation page printed in metallic inks that was bound into the copy.
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A very special and highly unusual feature of my variant A copy was this specially typeset presentation page printed in metallic inks that was bound into the copy. The donors of the wedding gift went to unusual lengths to have this page printed.
Detail map of London, England, United Kingdom Overview map of London, England, United Kingdom

A: London, England, United Kingdom

Color Printing by Leighton Brothers; Bindings by John Leighton?

1869
Elaborate cloth binding on Gems of English Art
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Binding variant A: The cover is printed in four colors plus gold.
Possibly the masterpiece of color printing in oil colors from woodblocks by the Leighton Brothers, George Cargill Leighton and Charles Blair Leighton, was Gems of English Art of this Century: Twenty-Four Pictures from National Collections, Printed in Colours by Leighton Brothers. With illustrative Texts by Francis Turner Palgrave. Burch, Colour Printing and Colour Printers (1910) 148-149 calls the plates in this work "excellent productions, that would probably be 'collected' if they bore Baxter's name instead of Leighton's....Judging from the point marks on the side of the print, Constable's 'Valley Farm' required twelve blocks for its reproduction."

The first original cloth binding (Variant A) that I am illustrating with this entry is one of my personal favorites. Printed in four colors plus gold, it may have been designed by John Leighton. Was binding variant B also designed by Leighton?

Timeline Themes

Printing: Color Printing
Bookbinding by Hand
Bookbinding by Machine