Following on from my last post, the book cradles I made earlier in the month proved very effective in displaying a superb selection of 12 early printed books from the collections held in the library at Corpus Christi College, Oxford. With apologies for the reflections, the cradles did their job exactly as intended, as you can see from the images below: they fully supported the openings for display and prevented strain on the bindings and sewing structure, yet were invisible when viewed from above. The polypropylene strapping is also virtually undetectable, and keeping it away from text areas as far as possible means that it does not detract from the visual impact of these exceptionally fine objects.

A good cradle always plays a supporting role, and is never centre stage, but without them the stars of the show would not be able to shine quite so brightly.

My thanks to Corpus Christi College for their kind permission to take and use these images.