HUMPHREYS, Henry Noel, [ 1807-1879 ] : Maxims and Precepts of the Saviour. [ London : Longman & Co., 1848 ] .
8vo. [1p.]/pp.31/pp.2 – Descriptive Index . Original embossed paper in red, blue, green, gold (now dulled), on black boards. One or two small chips to edge of paper and boards. Original spine carefully repaired, preserving the original blue embossed title: “Maxims & Precepts Of The Saviour“. All page edges still bright gilt. Illuminated initials and borders by H.N. Humphreys. sixteen stiff card leaves, chromolithographed in up to about twelve colours, including gold, with a single leaf of printed descriptive text at the rear: “…The binding is designed from a peculiar style of ornament, supposed to be the ‘Opus Anglicum’, so much prized on the continent in the 10th and 11th centuries. The model which has furnished the present design is a border in a MS. copy of the Gospels executed for King Cnut (Canute). The principal school for the execution of this peculiar style of ornament appears to have been established at Winchester.”
McLean, Design (pp.104 and 107): “The illuminator has used the precepts ‘Behold the fowls of the air’ and ‘Consider the lilies of the field’ as a theme for his borders, into which he has introduced some of the brilliantly coloured birds and flowers which had only recently been discovered and published’. These include toucans, macaws and kingfishers.