The Life Guards : historical records, battle honours and poetical tributes.
Alberto Sangorski (1862-1932)
Category
Manuscripts and documents
Date
1922
Materials
Place of origin
London
Collection
Anglesey Abbey, Cambridgeshire
NT 3151327
Summary
The Life Guards: Historical Records, Battle Honours and Political Tributes [Calligraphic manuscript on vellum, written and illuminated by Albert Sangorski, 1922] Binding: Twentieth-century full panelled red and black morocco over thick boards; gilt fillets and tools (flowers, leaves, crowns and roses) to form a border and central panel; deeply inlaid into black morocco central panel is a gilt metal relief centrepiece of the Order of the Garter, lettered Honi soit qui mal y pense, studded with stones resembling diamonds, pearls and rubies; gilt panelled spine with gilt crown and rose tools; black morocco spine labels with title 'The Life Guards / Historical records battle honours and poetical tributes’; sewn on five raised bands; gilt-tooled red morocco turn-ins; gilt textblock edges; dark blue watered-silk endpapers; binder’s stamp: Specially bound by Zaehnsdorf 1922 for Robson & Co.
Full description
The name Zaehnsdorf came to be associated with luxury bookbinding in Britain in the middle of the nineteenth century. Joseph Zaehnsdorf (1814-86) was born in Pest, Hungary, and learned the binder's trade there before travelling across Europe and working with binders in Vienna, Zürich, Paris and elsewhere. He ended his journey in London in 1837, where he soon established a binding workshop of his own in Covent Garden. He married an Englishwoman, steadily built a reputation and a clientele, and by the 1860s was winning medals at international exhibitions and styling himself 'bookbinder to the King of Hanover'. After his death, the business was carried on by his son, Joseph William Zaehnsdorf (1853-1930), who expanded it and assured its place as one of the top West End firms of the early twentieth century. The firm held a royal warrant as bookbinders to both Edward VII and George V, and their customer base extended beyond England to Europe and the USA. The younger Zaehnsdorf took advantage of the growing interest in hand-binding fostered by Thomas Cobden-Sanderson and the Arts and Crafts movement, by advertising courses in bookbinding and by publishing a manual on 'The Art of Bookbinding', first issued in 1880 and regularly reprinted. The dynastic succession continued in 1920, when Joseph William handed over the running of the business to his son Ernest Zaehnsdorf (1879-1970). After his retirement in 1947, it passed through various hands and in 1998 was combined with Sangorski & Sutcliffe. This book, signed 'specially bound by Zaehnsdorf 1922', is one of the most imposing - and weighty - modern bindings on the Anglesey Abbey shelves; it also seems to have been one of Lord Fairhaven's earlier acquisitions, and was certainly in his library by 1925. It covers one of Alberto Sangorski's specially handwritten and illuminated calligraphic manuscripts, on vellum, telling the history of the Life Guards. The book has thick wooden boards, covered in red morocco with inlays, gilt-tooled with a simple design including crowns and Tudor roses, and with a central oval panel on the front, into which is sunk a gilt and enamel medallion of the regimental badge. Lord Fairhaven served in the Life Guards from 1916 to 1924, and it is clear that his association with the regiment was something special to him; his portrait in full-dress uniform, commissioned in 1925, hangs at Anglesey Abbey today. The Life Guards is the senior regiment of the British Army, dating its origins back to troops raised by Charles II in the 1650s and 1660s. Organised as two regiments between the late eighteenth century and the First World War, they were formally amalgamated into one regiment in 1922 and are now part of the Household Cavalry. Text adapted from David Pearson's entry in 'Treasures from Lord Fairhaven's Library at Anglesey Abbey', 2013, cat. 45, pp. 138-9.
Bibliographic description
70, [8] p. : col. ill., ports., coats of arms ; 4to. A manuscript, illuminated with gilt and watercolour initials and illustrations, interleaved with silk. On unnumbered leaf at end: 'This manuscript Historical records of the Life Guards was designed, written out, and illuminated by Alberto Sangorski. In compiling this abridged "Historical records" of His Majesty's Regiment "The Life Guards" which have been gathered from various sources, I wish to state that some portion was taken from the work by Captain Sir George Arthur Bart: late Second Life Guards, "The story of the Household Cavalry," also from a work written by G. F. Bacon Esq. ... ' [Signed in a different ink:] Alberto Sangorski. Provenance: Twentieth-century armorial bookplate (large variant), signed Badeley 1930: ‘Urban Huttleston Rogers Lord Fairhaven’ [i.e.: Urban Huttleston Rogers Broughton, 1st Lord Fairhaven (1896-1966)]. Binding: Twentieth-century full panelled red and black morocco over thick boards; gilt fillets and tools (flowers, leaves, crowns and roses) to form a border and central panel; deeply inlaid into black morocco central panel is a gilt metal relief centrepiece of the Order of the Garter, lettered Honi soit qui mal y pense, studded with stones resembling diamonds, pearls and rubies; gilt panelled spine with gilt crown and rose tools; black morocco spine labels with title 'The Life Guards / Historical records battle honours and poetical tributes’; sewn on five raised bands; gilt-tooled red morocco turn-ins; gilt textblock edges; dark blue watered-silk endpapers; binder’s stamp: Specially bound by Zaehnsdorf 1922 for Robson & Co. In dark blue straight-grained morocco box with padded blue velvet and watered-silk interior; metal clasps; stamped in gilt ‘Robson & Co. 7 Hanover St. London W.; gilt spine title on box: ‘The Life Guards’.
Provenance
Acquired by Huttleston Rogers Broughton, 1st Lord Fairhaven (1896-1966) and then bequeathed by him to the National Trust with the house and the rest of the contents in 1966.
Makers and roles
Alberto Sangorski (1862-1932), author