If it's alright with all of you, can we just skip over the fact that I haven't posted anything here for ten days and move on...? Thank you...
This is a little outside my comfort zone when it comes to collecting and dealing but it was so achingly beautiful. These patterned papers use a process called Dutch Gilt to decorate patterned paper with gold. The papers are on the inside of vellum covered boards, pastedown only, this is before endpapers were two pages facing each other. The paper and the binding probably dates from the early 18th century and is on a volume of Italian poetry printed before Galileo started discovering stuff... the book these papers enclose was created nearly 430 years ago. It's a humbling thought and age has only made this paper more beautiful.
