| As soon as I saw these books on eBay I thought that I recognized this unusual dentelle, and then racked my brain to try and remember where I had seen it. I had to search a ton on image files to find it but finally and fortunately, it was found in an old 2004 Christies auction (click here to see it) |
| The eBay photos were not sharp enough for me to be 100% sure that this was the same dentelle. A search of the name Champbonin, did not uncover any similar bindings, in fact I doubt whether there is a connection as far as bindings go. However searching the same 2004 Christies auction, strangely enough brought up another binding by this same workshop. Again it is another 1733 religious publication, thus for a lack of a better name we can provisionally name this work as being that of the 1733 Binder. |
| In as much as we have not covered much of this period that might be defined as post Boyet and possibly early Douceur, these bindings are very interesting, being in some ways retrospective in terms of the use of pointille tools. Boyet and Padeloup both made bindings with retrospective pointille tools, some quite similer to these. As soon as these books arrived in the mail I was quick to scan them and make Comparative Diagram 1, that demonstrates that these two bindings were in fact made with the same tools. |
| As always old books are filled with surprises, when I searched for this particular edition of Croiset's Exercice de Piete. I discovered that the publication is very popular with many many copies worldwide in various libraries. Eight editions from 1721 to 1804 (click here to see this in the Worldcat). However the most complete and authoritve source for publications WorldCat, does not show any copies of the 1733 third edition. Thus our copy is rare, and when it arrived in the mail, I discovered that it is rare for another reason being in exceptionally good condition, like new, and stunning to see, and hold, not many of these books will be blessed with such an elaborate dentelle binding. On the next page we will look at more of the clues that may help us identify the 1733 Binder. |
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| Even experts are sometimes wrong, before you spend thousands on a book, please do your own research! Just because I say a certain binding can be attributed to le Maitre isn't any kind of guarantee, don't take my word for it, go a step further and get your own proof. In these pages I have provided you with a way of doing just that. |
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