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Now blessed, with yet two more First Stadholder's bindings, I proceeded as with the first volume, following Dr. Storm's First Stadholder's tool classification. In the above illustration I have isolated and classified the important "STAMPELS" and "ROLS". The Rols are shown in Roman Numerals and the Stampels with numbers. Each time I encounter a new or well formed stempel I make a comparative diagram showing Dr. Storm's 'rubbing' next to a scanned example. |
| One of my first objectives in this study was to try to determine the age of the binding by comparing the tools used. With the aid of "digital alchemy" I found that I now had the power to recreate "virtual" tools and in fact entire virtual bindings. |
| For example, as an exercise in comparative analysis I wanted to reconstruct the first book in Dr. Storm's Catalogue, a First Stadholder's Binding. It is described as having two decorative frames, the outer frame made with ROL XVI and the inner frame with ROL VII... as I had photos of these rols from the Cats volume it was easy to reconstruct these frames. We then read however that stempel 179 is placed in the corners of the frames... I did not have a photo or scanned example of this stempel however I was able to 'create' one as per the diagram above. |
| I was now embarking on what might be termed "virtual bookbinding" .... as good as that sounds, at present I am forced to admit encountering certain limitations in recreating this binding... I know from Dr. Storm's description that the centerpiece is made of Stempels 31, 61, 114, 179 and 181. |
| However, imagining exactly how these stempels may have been artistically arrayed is quite another matter. In a comparative study of 14 photographed examples a certain pattern does however emerge. To get a better comparative 'grasp' of this work I have assembled these 14 bindings on one page at 100% scale. This allows one to compare not only the decorative elements but also the relative size of each arrangement in relation to actual size of each book. |
