Bronze Age Gold from Wales

This intimate prayer book binding was created for the politician and architectural pundit, Sir Alexander James Beresford Beresford Hope, one of William Burges’s leading patrons. It is mounted in ivory and studded with silver-gilt Tudor rosettes with jewel-like enamelling. The central rosette is embellished with a fantastical beast and the others are personalized with the initials A H and I H. The binding has two clasps, each in the form of a stylized dragon with a shield bearing the Hope coat of arms and family motto.

'The Common Book of Prayer' (Oxford: E Gardner & Son, 1866) with binding, the binding of ivory with enamelled silver-gilt mounts, two ivory boards each mounted with five silver-gilt Tudor rosettes, the centre one a double rosette with a long-necked fabulous creature and enamelled in red, the others with the single initials A H I H and enamelled in green, blue, green and blue respectively, the boards fastened shut by two identical silver-gilt and enamelled clasps in the form of paired stylised dragons each dragon bearing either a shield with the arms of Sir Alexander James Beresford Beresford Hope (azure, a chevron or between three bezants) or the Hope crest (a broken terrestrial globe surmounted by a rainbow issuing out of clouds at either end all proper), these pairs each linked by a hinged bar with hooked clasp bearing the Hope motto, AT SPES NON FRACTA, the spine covered with purple velvet, the inside of the boards and end papers lined in pale cream watered silk, the page edges gilded. With presumably original carrying case, cardboard covered with dark blue leather, lined with silk, hinged cover and one side, brass clasp.