The practise of storing books flat on the shelves in medieval times probably gave rise to the decoration of the closed book's fore edges as a quick visual method of identifying the volumes.  From the Sixteenth Century onwards book edges were gilded, gauffered, coloured and painted. This was either for purely decorative effect or to denote ownership by the use of heraldic devices. The gilding of fore edges was contemporary with the appearance of gold tooling on the covers of books and was there primarily to protect the pages from dirt. Gauffering which was was done by impressing designs into the gilding with hot tools, soon followed.

German Binders were particularly fond of painting the closed edges of their books. They decorated them mostly with figure subjects such as cherubs, from the middle of the sixteenth century. The Italians came to favour pale gold with delicate decorations that were in marked contrast to the heavily florid tastes of the Northern Europeans. The French reached the pinnacle of the art with their gilded and gauffered edges. These Floral and Arabesques designs were often finished by outlining them with pointed tools.

The French Bookbinder LeGascon is credited with been the first to introduce marbling to the edge of the pages under its gilding. The gold edges treated in this manner have a deep lustre but when the book is opened, the gilding disappears and the pages appear simply marbled. The “Mearne Binder” went onto develop this technique and introduced the novel idea of replacing the marbling with “Hidden Paintings”.This was accomplished by fanning out the page edges and painting on them a design, a coat of arms or a landscape. The book was then closed and the fore edge gilded. As with the marbled books the painting appears from beneath the gilded edges as the book is opened.

Later in the 18th Century James Edward of Halifax and John Whitaker, (a binder who had already established a reputation for himself by producing his “Etruscan Bindings”) revived the craft of painting books in the “Mearne” Fashion. Yet another binder, Kalthober developed another technique of gilding over a painted design but his method allowed the motif to be seen under the gold when the book was closed.

In the mid 19th Century the craft underwent another revival when techniques were developed to paint an already gilded book. This freed the artists from the servitude of bookbinders and book dealers and allowed them to seek their own commissions. The booktrade retaliated by inferring to their customers that this new method of decoration was somehow inferior. A myth that is strangely still perpetuated by some dealers today.

Although the craft suffered a serious decline around the time of the First World War, it has now been revived and championed by the modern fore edge painter, Martin Frost who give lectures and classes around the world on this lost art.

Sadly, in Mexico there also developed the fashion of branding the book edges with the owners mark as cowboys do to their cattle. This is also referred to as Fore Edge Decoration but often damages the volume.