The elaborately decorated covers of this Bible are exemplary of the so-called ‘golden age’ of English bookbinding that followed the Restoration of the Monarchy in 1660. For a period of some forty years after the accession of Charles II, English binders produced an extraordinary array of original designs that rivalled even the best continental work. Decorative bindings from this period, particularly at the upper ends of the market, are characterised by the use of various small tools, ornamental rolls, lines and gouges to form larger complex patterns arranged around frames or strapwork. They are almost always heavily gilt over leather dyed strikingly in red, black, olive and dark blue; the edges of the textblocks are also either gilt or painted. Among the most recognisable Restoration bindings are those with the ‘cottage roof’ motif shown here on this binding, named for its slanted shape at head and tail and eave-like borders (accentuated on this volume by an application of black paint).

This binding is one of several in the Royal Library attributed to the workshop of the binder Robert Steele, all of which are tooled with the interlaced monogram of William III and Mary II (see RCIN 1081311-2, 1081313). Steele had been apprenticed to the prolific bookbinder Samuel Mearne, who supplied numerous volumes to the Chapel, Closet, and Royal Library during the reign of Charles II. After Mearne’s death in 1683 (and that of Mearne’s son Charles in 1686), Steele may have taken over his former master’s workshop, continuing to bind books for royal patrons. It has been suggested that this copy of the Bible was intended for the use in the Chapel Royal.


Detailed binding description
Contemporary red goatskin (or sheepskin) binding, with gold-tooling on both sides and spine. Both sides tooled in the ‘cottage-roof’ style: outer vine roll border, followed by a semi-circular and floral roll border; outer double fillet gold-tooled panel border, with the small monogram of William III and Mary II on each of the outer corners; the space in between the roll and fillet border filled with gouges and swirl tools; in the centre, a ‘cottage-roof’ border, tooled in gold and filled in black, with a larger William and Mary monogram on each of the outer corners; in the centre of the cottage-roof, a diamond-shaped pattern of gold-tooled gouges, also painted black, with the William and Mary monogram in the centre; the space between all of the borders filled with a profusion of swirl, leaf, circular, pointilles and star tools, including a distinctive ‘worm-like’ tool identified as being used on bindings by Robert Steele.

Sides and insides of both boards gold-tooled with a semi-circular and floral roll border. Spine divided into eight compartments by raised bands, each tooled with a semi-circular and floral roll border. All compartments tooled with a dotted roll and fillet border; first, third, sixth and eighth compartments tooled in the centre with a quatrefoil design of gouges, painted black, with three-flower heads in each of the roundels, surmounted on the left and right with a small monogram of William and Mary and swirl tools in each of the corners; the second, fourth, fifth and seventh compartments gold-tooled with an elongated quatrefoil filled with flower and swirl tools, surmounted on the left and right with fluers-de-lis, with four fluers-de-lis in the upper and lower sections of the compartment and flower tools in each of the corners, also painted black (with the exception of the seventh); head and tail of spine gold-tooled with flower tools surmounted by swirls.

Contemporary marble endpapers; all edges gilt.