Queen’s binder ‘C’ binding ‘Terence’, Elzevir, 1635

TERENCE. Pub. Terentii Comoediae Sex  Ex recensione Heinsiana. Lugd. Batavorum [i.e. Leiden]: Ex officina Elzeviriana, 1635.

Engraved title, small woodcut portrait, printed in black and red.
12mo. [130 x 72 x 23 mm]. [24]ff, 304, [8] pp. Bound c.1675 in red goatskin, the covers tooled in gilt with a double fillet border and an all-over design of repeated drawer-handles, a four-petalled flower, a pointed flower, volutes and dots. The spine divided into four panels with gilt compartments, lettered in the second, the others with a large open flower tool and sprigs, the edges of the boards and turn-ins tooled with gilt rolls, marbled endleaves, gilt edges. (Rebacked preserving the original spine, tips of the corners worn). Willems, Les Elzevier, 433.
This appears to be the work of Queens’ Binder C, with his four petalled flower tool, a pointillé version with the petals attached to the centre circle, the petals at 3.00 and 9.00 o’clock slightly flattened, and with the 9.00 petal tilted fractionally higher. This tool and a pointed flower tool can be seen in plate 72 in Nixon, Five Centuries of English Bookbinding, on a binding for James Duke of York c.1676. Queens’ Binder C is the rarer of the four (or three if A and D are connected, as we suspect).