Girdle book #1
Full leather bound on wood, manually embossed11,0 x 15,0 cm
Full length 51,0 cm
2021
The Girdle book is a fenomenon from the early middle age; a book hanging from the girdle as a sort of portable accessory, popular among monks as well as clergymen and aristocats. There are not many girdle books left today, as they were often rebound into regular hardcovers to save and recycle leather; About three books can be made out of the material used for one single girdle book.
Girdle book #1 was a practice in traditional book binding, made in collaboration with Christian Klünder at Klünder Buchbinderei. The hardcover is full leather bound on wood, handsewn onto wires and embossed manually. The fashion of the embossing is not typical from the time but a rather contemporary design, however still based on a historical pattern.
Furthermore, the headband is hand sewn and other details are also handmade, such as the braid around the wooden “ball”, that enables the book hanging down from the girdle.
The book contains Alphons H. von Traunpaur’s work Dreyßig Breife über Galizien (Thirty Letters about Galicia), written in 1787. This specific edition was printed in 150 examples by Helmut Scherer Verlag in 1990 and is a reproduction of the original edition.
