Blocked

A technique of decorating bindings in which a design or picture is stamped into the leather cover by a block, into which the image has been carved or incised.

A technique of decorating bindings in which a design or picture is stamped into the leather cover by a block, into which the image has been carved or incised. Large woodblocks were sometimes employed for this purpose in the Netherlands during the sixteenth century. Metal blocks were first used in Flanders, allegedly by a canon of Antwerp, Wouter van Duffle, in the early thirteenth century. See also panels and tooled.

    Michelle Brown. Understanding Illuminated Manuscripts (Malibu, CA: J. Paul Getty Museum in association with the British Library, c1994).