[4]. This painting can be with or without gold. In any case, it is necessary that the leaves should be fanned out and tied slightly between boards. While in this position the colour is applied, which can be either a stain or water-colour moistened with size. When dry, the leaves are released, and may be left as they are or gilt in the ordinary way, when the colour will show through the gold, gaining a lustre and richness it would not otherwise have.

[5]. The process of leather cutting and embossing is briefly as follows. The design is first drawn on paper, then transferred to tracing paper and traced through from this on to the leather, which is shoe-calf prepared for the purpose as to quality and thickness. The process is very much like beaten and chased silver work, except that the soft leather has to be reinforced at the back with a cement, and while this cement is hardening the front has to be modelled. It is a mistake to suppose that this work is of a delicate nature. If the design is fairly evenly distributed over the decorated space, handling and the slight friction a well-bound book is subject to in the course of time enhance its appearance. Again, by tracing and cutting the design without embossing it a different surface is obtained, while the application of gold tooling and that of various colour tints are additions of treatment that give considerable scope to the finisher.

[6]. The author wishes to acknowledge permission, which she has received from The Printing Art, to print in this country this last chapter, which first appeared in that periodical.

Printed by T. and A. Constable, Printers to His Majesty at the Edinburgh University Press

TRANSCRIBER’S NOTES

  1. Silently corrected obvious typographical errors and variations in spelling.
  2. Retained archaic, non-standard, and uncertain spellings as printed.
  3. Re-indexed footnotes using numbers and collected together at the end of the last chapter.
  4. Corrected the first two items in the [Erratum]. The last item was left unchanged.
  5. Moved some illustrations several pages to prevent them from breaking paragraphs. Altered the links in the table of illustrations accordingly.