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The picture shown above is from an online publictity brochure for The James de Rothschild Bequest at Waddesdon Manor Printed Books and Bookbindings (click here to see it). Inside this brochure we can view pages from Giles Barber's book entitled Catalogue of Printed Books and Bookbindings: The James A. de Rothschild Bequest at Waddesdon Manor available at Amazon for only... $821.94!!! Fortunately we can see a few pages of this book for free online, the picture shown above might be from the second part of this work, however, I just wanted to point out a few things that I discovered in this brochure. Below, I show a selection of imprints that Barber has catalogued with the prefix DST, an abbreviation for Dentelle special subject tools these are found under the heading of Allusive tools found on dentelle bindings |
| We can see in Barbers text about these imprints that they derive from W.Cat.423. Barber notes that the DST 21 imprint "occures on another copy of the 1757 Daphnis et Chloe (La Roche Lacarelle 312) bearing Dubuisson's ticket, and therefore is likely to be connected with him..." this is either a great understatement or a sign that Barber is not well versed in the work of Dubuisson. Now lets look closely again at this brochure photo... |
| Here we see a Daphnis et Chloe binding with the same imprints DST 20 and 21, I think we can assume therefore that this is the W.Cat.423. binding and that there exists the same tools on another similar binding signed by Dubuisson. |
| In Comparative Diagram 1, I show again the Collombat roulette that we looked at on another page (see this page) here again we have proof that this roulette is found on Dubuisson bindings. However I see a few other tools that make this Dubuisson unusual or post Dubuisson, or possibly executed by Delorme. My reasons for saying this turn around a binding that we looked at last year (see this page) This is a binding found in the online collection of the Bibliotheque nationale de France, it is mosaic that they attribute to Derome le Jeune, yet the doublure of this binding has an elaborate dentelle that has been decorated with Dubuisson tools. The binding is thought to have been executed around 1763, i.e. after the unfortunate death of Pierre-Paul Dubuisson. At the time, I did not recognize some of the tools used in that dentelle and now by a strange coincidence we see them here in this W.Cat.423. binding. |
| Unfortunately the quality of the brochure reproduction is not good enough to make an enlargement that would render Comparative Diagram 2, more convincing. What we know is that W.Cat.423. has been decorated with Dubuisson tools, and similarly we know that the BnF doublure (from BnF, RLR, B-4873 (BIS)) has also been made with many of Dubuisson's tools. It would seem obvious therefore that the imprints shown in Comparative Diagram 2 are from the same tool. They should be the same but its not very convincing at this point, and we know that one is probably from 1763. |
| In Comparative Diagram 3, I have selected two more imprints that are not part of the normal Dubuisson tools, they appear later and may be the tools of Delorme, however I could see also a pair of tools in the BnF example that I only recently discovered in a 1758 Almanach Royal. pd-40a and 40b. these are late tools. (see this Almanach) now I just flashed on this.... |
| Here is something to ponder, in Comparative Diagram 4, we see a 1758 Almanach Royal that shares identical workmanship with a 1777 Almanach Royal. From our research last year we know that the 1777 Almanach was decorated by Delorme, now we see the that Delorme must have either learned this from Dubuisson in 1758 or he was working for Dubuisson on the Almanachs, either way it looks as though there is a strong possibility that Delorme had a hand in this 1758 Almanach that would, in all normal circumstances, be attributed to Dubuisson. To return then to the W.Cat.423, where we can see tools that may actually be those of Delorme, this binding holds some clues that will help us discover who made what. |
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click here to see the INDEX of the 2017 pages. click here to return to the HOME page. see below links to previous work |
| 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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