Bookbinding — Upper cover of a bookbinding , Egypt, 15th century

Bookbinding — Upper cover of a bookbinding , Egypt, 15th century is an object recorded by Victoria and Albert Museum, dated 15th century. The museum's brief description reads: Detached binding, Front cover, Egypt, 15th century..

Museum description: 1 bookbinding: front cover brown leather over paper pasteboards; blind and gold tooling The inner rectangular panel contains elaborate floral decoration with a scalloped outline in almond shape in the centre. This is repeated in sections in the corners of the panel. Three types of flowers are shown on the sinuous stems which frame the almond shape. The main outer margin consists of a broad border divided into a number of panels with diagonal knotwork patterns.

The pasteboards are made up of a large number of sheets of paper with naskh script in a variety of hands. The back cover of this binding is 1070C-1869. A set of detached Koran leaves also in the collection (MSL/1869/7217) were probably part of the book this cover was made for. The museum record gives material recorded as leather, paper, pasteboard; measurements Height 952 mm; Width 670 mm; Depth 9 mm; place associated: Egypt, Cairo.

These details come from the holding museum's own record; how far this object represents a wider collectible type has not yet been independently verified.