[WALLET.]
Wallet with manuscript and printed waste.
France, c. 1790.
Wallet binding (170 x 110 mm) of green vellum, roll-tooled gilt borders and frames with gilt cornerpieces to covers, fore-edge envelope flap similarly tooled, lined with green paper, and with leather wraparound tie laced through two holes and secured with knots, the interior comprising seven concertinaed compartments made from gilt brocade paper and manuscript and printed waste; somewhat worn and rubbed, a few small losses, some spots to lower cover, some interior tears.
An attractive late eighteenth-century wallet in the guise of a wallet-bound book, possibly re-using an earlier eighteenth-century binding, the interior compartments composed of manuscript and printed waste.
The divisions between the pockets are made from gilt brocade paper, almost entirely concealed by the fragments of printed waste pasted over. These fragments are of uncut sheets from the 1766 Amsterdam edition of volume II of the famous Mémoires of Armand de Mormès de Saint-Hilaire (1651–1740), the noted French general. The concertinaed sides are from a manuscript legal document on vellum, also of the eighteenth century.
