DOUAY BIBLE – The Holy Catholic Bible. The Holy Bible, Translated from the Latin Vulgate.

DUBLIN ARMORIAL BINDING

[DOUAY BIBLE] The Holy Catholic Bible. The Holy Bible, Translated from the Latin Vulgate: diligently compared with the Hebrew, Greek and other editions in divers Languages. The Old Testament, first published by the English College at Douay, A.D. 1609. And The New Testament, first published by the English College at Rheims, A.D. 1582. With useful notes, critical, historical, controversial and explanatory. Selected from the most eminent commentators and the most able and judicious critics. By the late Rev. Geo. Leo Haydock and other Divines.

The Text carefully collated with that of the original edition and the annotations abridged by the Very Rev. F.C. Husenbeth Canon of the English Chapter. Illustrated with several steel engravings. Edited by Rev. G. Haydock. With notes and illustrations by the Rev. George Leo Haydock. London: Henry and Co., [1850]. Quarto [12.75 x 10.5 x 3.5"]. Bound by Gerald Bellew of Dublin in full contemporary hard grained dark red morocco with his signature lettered in gilt on the inside of the front cover (G. Bellew/ Bookbinder/ Dublin). Covers tooled in gilt and blind to a panel design with the crowned arms of the Sovereign Military Order of Malta and the shield of the Equestrian Order of the Holy Sepulchre in the centres of both covers against a gilt sunburst background. Spine in six panels divided by five raised bands, the second panel lettered in gilt 'HOLY / BIBLE', the remainder elaborately tooled in gilt; board-edges and turn-ins tooled with a gilt roll; tartan patterened endpapers; wide gold endbands; inner fabric joints. All edges gilt. A super example of an Irish armorial bookbinding and extremely uncommon.

Gerald Bellew was one of the leading Dublin binders from 1836 to 1862. Among his institutional clients were Maynooth College and Clongowes Wood College. His finer bindings are distinguished, as here, by a gilt signature pallet - 'G. Bellew, Bookbinder, Dublin' - usually placed on the lower turn-in of the upper cover. This pretty massive example comes from some clearly commissioned bindings produced for a Dublin chapel associated with the Sovereign Military Order of Malta and the Equestrian
Order of the Holy Sepulchre.

See De Burca Bookbinding Catalogues 31 (1993) and 76 (2006); Patrick King Bulletin 37 (2001).