Study of the archive documentation of the bookbinder Joaquín-Gómez Mackinón at the Real Academia de Bellas Artes de San Fernando: 1887-1889

Abstract

oaquín-Gómez Mackinón was one of those anonymous bookbinders who worked for the Royal Academy of Fine Arts of San Fernando between 1887 and 1889, making luxury bindings to give to Pope Leo XIII and for the Universal Exhibition in Barcelona in 1888, not forgetting the ordinary bindings in Dutch and spattered papers destined for the Library along with the large print runs of bindings in the Academy’s Yearbook. So we can see that he was a bookbinder who did quality work. The article tries to present some biographical notes of this bookbinder and the analysis of his orders, so that his bindings made in other institutions can be identified. The methodology followed has been the analysis of the archive documentation of the Royal Academy of Fine Arts of San Fernando, extracting the information related to the orders made from the Academy to this bookbinder; then the bindings mentioned in the invoices and receipts have been located, and the construction and decorative techniques and the irons used in the ornamentation have been studied, and several parts of the binding have been digitalized. The final result has been the obtaining of a corpus of irons used by this bookbinder, very useful for the identification of other bindings in other institutions as well as the identification of the different decorative and constructive techniques used.