1856 Manuel de Piété | Red and Gold Gauffered Edges

Manuel de Piété (Manual of Piety), printed by Jacques Lecoffre, Paris, France. Published 1856. French Language. 

A black leather binding with gold-gilt dentelle work along the board edges, four raised bands on the spine, all page edges are painted red and feature a gold-gilt modified ermine motif, secured endpapers are marbled. 

After the book block was tightly clamped and the page edges were gilded, a master bookbinder used heated brass finishing tools to hand-stamp the delicate flourishes and linework into the gold in a bookbinding process called gauffering. It was a premium feature reserved for luxury devotional or presentation books in the mid-19th century. 

100 mm W x 148 mm H. 828 pages. 

Condition: Marks across the cover and spine; some light wear to spine hinge corners; corners and top of spine are rubbed; paint on page edges is faded in spots; endpapers are partially missing, but the book block is still attached to boards; frontispiece is missing; some other pages are loose but still attached; foxing throughout. Fair condition.