Publishers' Bindings at The Metropolitan Museum of Art

The Museum has been expanding its collections of publishers  bindings and related materials by the artists who made them. Here are a few tips to get started. 

To search Watsonline for publishers bindings search by Call Number, type in 'publishers bindings' and they will all come up. (There are many more still uncatalogued, but that's ongoing).

https://library.metmuseum.org/search/?searchtype=c&searcharg=publishers+bindings&searchscope=1&SORT=D&SUBMIT=Search

To see publishers bindings blog posts on In Circulation:

http://www.metmuseum.org/research/libraries-and-study-centers/in-circulation/2015/american-trade-bindings-2

http://www.metmuseum.org/research/libraries-and-study-centers/in-circulation/2015/american-trade-bindings

http://www.metmuseum.org/research/libraries-and-study-centers/in-circulation/2015/czech-bindings

To see MMA Timeline essay on Alice C. Morse:

http://www.metmuseum.org/toah/hd/mors/hd_mors.htm

There have been recent acquisitions of materials relating to Margaret Armstrong and her family. These are in the Dept. of Drawings and Prints, along with many other books. You need to make an appt. to visit that room, but you can also use it to teach classes using the Museum's collection. Here is a link to the Museum catalog entries on Armstrong. A most amazing acquisition is a two-volume sketchbook, by Margaret Armstrong containing all of her original drawings for Western Wildflowers.The gift shop has used these for all kinds of gift items. 

Feel free to email me with questions about the visiting or otherwise accessing the collections -  mindell.dubansky@metmuseum.org

Come visit!

Beside the Bonnie Brier Bush with Dust Jacket

Link

It's not the greatest photograph, but looking on the Inernet I saw this copy of Morse's design for Ian Maclaren's book with its dust jacket on a blogpost (address above) and thought it was worth noting that the gold block was dropped from the dust jacket and 'Illustrated Edition' added. What a lovely copy!

Work on the Morse collection continues and I've been finding several binding variants and adaptations of known designs lately, although no new designs have shown up, with the exception of a speculation. I'll be getting the images and citations out soon. All of these are being added to the ACM collection, which I've been processing for the Watson Library. Although it has not been catalogued yet, if you are interested in seeing it, let me know.