Persian and Ottoman bookbinding

Norah Titley says the bookbinder held an important place in producing splendid manuscripts from the earliest times, his skill seen from the Coptic-inspired Arabic covers of the ninth century to the painted lacquer of nineteenth-century Iran. ¹ The decoration of the earliest Qur'ans and their covers was austere, and as Qur'an pages grew more ornate their geometric interlace extended to the covers. ¹

A feature of Islamic bindings is the extra triangular flap attached to the back cover, folded round the leaves and tucked inside the front cover, forming a second spine and protecting the leaves from grit and dust. ¹

In the fifteenth century the binders of Shiraz and Herat developed blind-tooled decoration of animals, birds, plants and arabesques on the outer covers, with gilt stamped designs on the doublures; by the sixteenth century doublures bore filigree cut from silver, gilt or coloured paper pasted on multicoloured grounds, as on the binding of Ahli Shirazi's poems of 1581–82. ³ Titley notes dated covers for Shahrukh, Baysunghur, Uzun Hasan, Sultan Husayn, Ibrahim Sultan and Pir Budaq in Istanbul libraries, and that lacquer bindings seem to have begun at Herat under Sultan Husayn. ²

Persian binders were among the craftsmen taken to Turkey in the early sixteenth century; Ottoman binders developed their own styles — brown leather filigree on deep blue doublures, gold painted directly on covers, and protective cases with matching designs. ² Painted lacquer covers multiplied in Qajar Iran, often showing Fath Ali Shah or naturalistic and stylised flowers. ⁴ Indian binders learned the art from Persian craftsmen and made much use of lacquer covers. ⁴