Dark brown morocco, blind-tooled (inner cover) over wooden boards. Chemise of velvet (outside), dark brown-carmine fading to lavender-red, and of lavender-red silk (inside) with trimmings and pellets in red and gold thread; silver fastening. The chemise, of which the overhanging part is c. 2.5 cm all around, is only tied to the binding by its fastening.
Instead of one covering (leather or textile) it has two, of which the outer textile covering has supple flaps all around. The nails of the fastening are the only means of attachment of the chemise to the binding. As the lining over the insides of the covers continues into the shoulders, it would be extremely difficult to unfasten the chemise. The second covering has disappeared in almost all cases and this will certainly be due to the fact that textile is a very vulnerable material. Its makers may even have foreseen this problem, and this would explain the blind-tooling on the inner covering of this binding, which would, of course, only be fully visible without the chemise.
