Paracas Band, Paracas Artisans 800 B.C. - 200 A.D.

Decorative band with interlocking designs. The pre-loom technique is plaiting of yarns and it creates different bands which give as a result tridimensional designs. Camelid fiber threads (probably alpaca) and vegetable dyes.

Kaitags are a rare form of embroidery from Kaitag, a Dargin inhabited region of Dagestan. There are only 600 known Kaitag pieces in the world. They were made for ceremonies such as births and weddings as a form of protection from the ‘evil eye’.

Turnbull Bindings:  Dos-à-dos

Dos-à-dos (French for ‘back-to-back’) is a novelty style of bookbinding where two books are bound back to back using three boards, with the middle board shared as the lower board of each book. It was typically used for small devotional books from the 16th century onwards (Oxford Companion to the Book, 2:678).

This 17th-century dos-à-dos binding is comprised of canvas boards, embroidered with gold and silver threads and coloured silks. The raised, silver-framed central medallion on both covers contains a large red and blue embroidered flower with variegated leaves. The spines are similarly decorated with flowers in silver and the gilt fore-edges gauffered with design of interlocking curves. 

Acquired by the Turnbull from Sokol Books, London, 2007.