Amaranth

Our Fall Filigree series reproduces the pattern of an 18th-century leather book cover. At that time, the Bavarian town of Hof, where the binding was crafted, was experiencing material abundance and an upsurge in artistic output. Consequently, people had the means to afford luxury items like richly bound and decorated books, such as the one reproduced here.

The original was published in 1736 by Johann Gottlieb Vierling, who specialized in religious, scientific and philosophical texts. This binding contained a publication of the Old and New Testaments. The gold tooling of the cover design is a composite of stylized elements, with the front panel divided into four compartments, each complete with a vase of three flowers. The finely wrought ornaments surrounding each of these quarters is suggestive of filigree, a delicate decorative metalwork popular in bookbinding at the time.

While one part of this series’ name acknowledges the design’s filigreed ornamentation, its botanical character also turned us to thoughts of autumn and its warm, alluring colours. Our Amaranth cover title comes from the vivid colour of the so-named plant’s flowers. According to Greek tradition, amaranth is a symbol of immortality and as such can also represent the perpetual cycle of seasonal transformations, appropriate for this autumnal design.