Lady’s Portable Writing Portfolio

Lg. 4to. (11 3/8 x 9 1/4 inches). Within a solid outer border, the design is composed of a wide, gold, seashell border (cadre "rocaille"). Each of the four corners contains a fully realized portrait of a young scholar reading or writing. On the inside front cover, printed in gold on coated white paper, set within a rococo floral design, we find the days of the week. On the inside rear cover, covered in heavy embossed white paper, is a set of three expandable pouches for correspondence: Lettres à répondre, Lettres répondues, and Notes diverses. The content of the portfolio consists of eight sheets of blotting paper sewn into matching white embossed paper. There are off settings from earlier use (blue and some black ink), but the portfolio is in excellent condition. It is preserved in a cloth clamshell case. Although this portfolio is not a book, it certainly was produced at the atelier of a highly skilled French (undoubtedly Parisian) bookbinder, around the middle of the nineteenth century. We have reviewed the literature dealing with French decorative romantic bookbindings and cannot place the plaques used in its execution. Comparisons with the occasional surviving French bookbinding of this period, executed on velour, reinforce our opinion that this is a remarkable example of the bookbinders' art at the height of the romantic era in bookbinding.