BINDING - The Book of Common Prayer, London, 1864, large 8vo, interleaved with 27 FINE FULL-PAGE ORIGINAL ILLUSTRATIONS ON VELLUM, IN A FINE HIGHLY ELABORATE 19TH-CENTURY EMBROIDERED BINDING.

BINDING - The Book of Common Prayer, and Administration of the Sacraments ... Together with the Psalter or Psalms of David. London: Longman, Green, Longman, Roberts, and Green, 1864. Large 8vo (205 x 135mm.). Half title, printed in red and black throughout, text within panelled stylised foliate borders, interleaved with 27 FINE FULL-PAGE ORIGINAL ILLUSTRATIONS ON VELLUM, almost certainly by Gustavus Arthur Bouvier, in pen-and-ink and gouache, heightened with gold. IN AN EXCEPTIONALLY FINE HIGHLY ELABORATE 19TH-CENTURY EMBROIDERED BINDING, the upper cover depicting Christ crucified, the lower cover depicting Christ enthroned and surrounded by the emblems of the Evangelists, the spine with the "IHS" monogram, a coat-of-arms and a thurible, the whole richly embroidered in coloured silks and gold thread on cream silk, ornamented with seed pearls and mounted with coloured stones, with two clasps, the upper one with a small glazed teardrop case containing a lock of hair, possibly a relic or personal keepsake, and 2 coloured stones, the lower clasp ornamented with a pilgrim's shell, and 2 coloured stones, three silk markers embroidered at their ends with monograms, each secured at the head of the spine with a gold filigree band, the pastedowns embellished with hexagonal lacework panels and with portraits of the Four Evangelists in the corners at the front and the Four Latin Doctors of the Church in the corners at the back, gauffered edges with a repeated heraldic letter "h" within a lattice (the lower clasp detached, several coloured stones and mounts lacking, a few loose threads), contained in a plain suede-lined box (split and frayed at edges). The subject matter of the illustrations, as one would expect, are largely taken from biblical stories and include the expulsion of Adam and Eve from the Garden of Eden, a charming nativity scene and a somewhat insipid crucifixion. A few of the illustrations depict or incorporate places and churches in Kent; for example, "The Crispe Chapel, Birchington" [in All Saints Church, Birchington, Kent, where Dante Gabriel Rossetti is buried], "Rochester", and the church of "St. Margaritae Roffensis" [St. Margaret's Church, Rochester]. Another illustration incorporates a coat-of-arms with the name "Harrison" beneath a dramatic representation of a ship in a storm. (Please see the note on provenance at the end of this description.) There is also a portrait of Saint Paul which incorporates views of the old and the new St. Paul's Cathedrals in London, a portrait of Queen Victoria at her coronation, but dated from her succession in June 1837, and one of Queen Elizabeth I enthroned before her "Articles of Religion", with advisers at her sides. The majority of the illustrations are not signed, although a few bear the name "G. Bouvier" and one the initials "G.A.B.": this is almost certainly Gustavus Arthur Bouvier (1837-1921), a London genre painter. See Benezit ("[Bouvier] exposa de 1866 à 1874 à la Royal Academy et à Suffolk Street, à Londres") and Christopher Wood's Dictionary of Victorian Painters (1978), p.56. Provenance: As indicated by the details of the heraldry and locations which feature in some of the illustrations, the prayer book was almost certainly bound and illustrated for Caroline Esther Crisp Webb (1798-1879). The arms with the horseshoes are hers (Crisp), and St Margaret's, Rochester was her parish church and the site of her burial. The arms with the eagle which, on occasion, impale hers, are those of her first husband William Francis Harrison (1790-1845), whom she married in 1821, and whose surname appears in full in one illustration, as detailed above; following his death, Caroline married Francis Mathew Webb (1804-81), Alderman and J. P. of Rochester, in 1848.