Thread by @incunabula

Today is the 108th anniversary of the sinking of the Titanic. Also lost with the ship on the night of 15th April 1912 was the most elaborate binding ever produced by the London firm of Sangorski & Sutcliffe, the legendary "Great Omar" version of the Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam. 1/2

This is number 2 of 10 copies of a less elaborate but still superlative binding produced by Sangorski & Sutcliffe at around the same time - 1910-12. It has the same characteristic peacock motif as the "Great Omar", and is set with 37 inlaid precious and semi-precious stones. 2/2

Aside from the 37 embedded jewels, the binding is inlaid with no less than 102 separate pieces of variously colored leather. The doublures are blue morocco and the fly-leaves are silk.

https://twitter.com/PressbengelProj/status/1250523194383007746

This is the original letter from Sangorski & Sutcliffe that accompanied the ten Rubaiyats bound in "Great Omar" style.

This particular copy formerly belonged to Bapsybanoo Pavry, an Indian-born socialite and aristocrat, who married Henry Paulet, 16th Marquess of Winchester.

Bapsybanoo Pavry is thought to be the only Indian Marchioness ever. Her husband, the Marquess, was 90 years old at the time of their marriage in 1952. Within weeks of the wedding he left her for his former fiancée Eve Fleming, the mother of Ian Fleming, the James Bond author.

Despite living in England for most of her adult life, she only visited Winchester once, immediately after her marriage in 1952, but felt snubbed as few people welcomed her, and never returned. Nevertheless, on her death she bequeathed £500,000 to the town of Winchester...1/3

... to be used to build a community centre in her name so that the city would be forced to acknowledge her. Winchester City Council failed to carry out the bequest for 14 years, by which time the sum had grown to £1.4 million... 2/3

Finally, in June 2009, a room in the Guildhall was refurbished and renamed after her with a huge portrait of her in her state robes by Frank Salisbury taking pride of place.... 3/3

There's an incredibly bitchy and to my mind racist biography of her on the website of the Hampshire Cultural Trust, read the last two paragraphs in particular.

collections.hampshireculture.org.uk/topic/marchion…

I wonder if @HantsCulture will comment on this clearly racist biography on their website (of a philanthropic woman who left the city of Winchester £500k in her will to build a community centre). Have they ever described a white aristocrat in these terms?
collections.hampshireculture.org.uk/topic/marchion…

Bapsybanoo Pavry was not, by the way, some impoverished ingénue when she married the Marquess - she was 51 at the time, spoke 12 languages, had an MA from Columbia University, and came from an aristocratic and philanthropic Zoroastrian family of great wealth.