Tag Archives: manuscript book

Another Graily Hewitt manuscript book

IMG_2632This delightful little book was written by calligrapher and illuminator Graily Hewitt (1864–1952). It’s the text of the Holy Communion written out for Clairice Gabbatt who lived in Petersfield. The book is in Graily Hewitt’s typical lettering style and it’s likely to be on his usual preferred writing surface of parchment, as the leaves are quite thin.

 

 

 

 

IMG_2631The book is bound in a dark leather with a gilded cross, and vine leaves and bunches of grapes in each corner (from ‘I am the vine, you are the branches’, John 15:5) and this image also gives an indication of size.

 

 

 

 

 

 

IMG_2633Graily Hewitt’s lettering is always very strong, it was said that he was the best calligrapher in the UK after Edward Johnston. Interestingly he almost always chose to write on parchment which is not the most pleasant surface to write on and results in letters that are not as crisp as they can be on well-prepared vellum.The enlarged and gilded letter ‘O’ is delightful and that, and the enlarged ‘A’, are surrounded by fine line decoration similar to that in the De Brailes Hours.

 

 

 

IMG_2634Calligraphers working at the turn of the last century were less concerned about word breaks. Nowadays most scribes wouldn’t break the word ‘Father’ in the first line to ‘Fa’ and ‘ther’ on the second, and again the word ‘Because’ split not just between two lines, but ‘Be’ on one page’ and then ’cause’ on the next.

If you want to see more of Graily Hewitt’s work, then a previous web post is here.

 

 

 

downloadGraily Hewiit was the tutor to a number of students, including Dr R A Holmes (shown on the right) and featured in another post on Graily Hewitt here. This is the background to the book from Jenny who owns it:

My great aunt Clairice Gabbatt and her husband lived in an Arts and Crafts house in Petersfield. They had no children and Clairice was worth a considerable fortune as she was a member of the Hartley’s Jam family. They were religious (and a bit stuffy) and became lavish benefactors of their church, St. Mary’s Liss. Clairice and her friend Lady Maufe (a director of Heals) wife of Sir Edward Maufe the architect who designed Guildford Cathedral  furnished the church with fabrics from Liberty and Heals and bought all the vestments etc. Percy Gabbatt seemed to domineer all the goings on at the church and any renovations etc (which he paid for) so tongue in cheek, the locals referred to the church as St. Gabbatt’s. They donated a wonderful porch statue called Incarnation made by friend Eric Gill and he and Gwen Reveratt and Graily Hewitt, I am led to believe, were all friends.  Graily Hewitt was commissioned to do the Baptismal roll in the church. In a church magazine I have, he was mentioned as living in Petersfield.  However this little Holy Communion book refers to Treyford. Treyford is not far from Petersfield. 

Written on the last page of the Holy Communion book by Graily Hewit  in pencil “Clairice Gabbatt memento Graily Hewitt 1946.”

Many thanks to Jenny for supplying the photographs and the background.

Vellum ‘music’ book

Vellum bookI am always on the lookout for suitable quotations to write out, and, as I am keen on music, when I had a collection of phrases on the topic, I decided to do something with them.

 

 

 

 

 

Rough textIt took quite a few years before I could get round to it, but I was eventually able to combine the music quotations with a spare piece of vellum I had and make a vellum book. To start with I experimented with nib size and writing style, and settled on the fallback of Italic. So I wrote out all the quotations to see how many lines each would take and what sort of shape they would be. I wrote out the authors’ names in tiny capitals as a contrast.

Text rough placedThen I cut up the different quotations and used magic tape to attach the authors’ names underneath in what I thought was the best position. I played around with blocks of text to try to get a balance in terms of layout, and placed these in various positions on a large piece of paper.

When I was happy with this, I marked all the positions and took measurements of exactly where each separate block of text, with the writers’ names, started and finished.

text on vellumThen it was time to determine the exact page size. The top margin is usually smaller than the bottom, and the two outer and the inner margins about the same (the ratio for a classically laid out manuscript book is 2 units at the top, 4 units at the bottom, and 3 units at each outer edge and in the gutter [fold]).

 

 

 

 

detailI selected a reasonably robust piece of vellum so that it wouldn’t buckle and cockle too much, but note the distinct curve of the skin on the above right. This is the piece of vellum without being under weights, and not sewn into a book.The skin was prepared (see Illumination DVD) and the positions of the lines were marked by pin pricks using a set of compasses (see Calligraphy Clip, Measuring lines) then the lines were drawn with a 4H pencil.

 

detailTo avoid the lettering looking too boring I wrote the text blocks alternately in Chinese liquid ink, and ultramarine Schmincke Calligraphy gouache. I also had the idea for a bit of levity by inserting a raised gesso musical note covered in pure gold leaf, (the same process as used for raised gold in mediæval illuminated manuscripts), between each of the text blocks.

I was fortunate in that my training many years ago also included bookbinding, which I enjoy very much, so making the vellum sheet into a book wasn’t too much of a challenge. Acid-free 230 gsm hp paper was used for the title page and colophon. I was given some lovely Indian hand-made paper marbled with gold swirls which seemed appropriate for the end papers, and also had some black and gold fabric with which I covered the boards for the book. So it was a case of folding, trimming, sewing and sticking and the book was done.