| The binding shown above is from an auction catalogue entitled Livres illustrés du XVIIIème siècle, Galerie Charpentier, les 11 et 12 mai 1955, published by Librairie Giraud-Badin, Paris 1955. This binding did not attract a lot of money even though it was attributed to Derome, perhaps some doubted even that it was a Derome. However this is a Derome and possibly one of his earliest bindings, perhaps it was even executed in 1760, before he was even officialy a binder. On the previous page we have explored another early Derome binding showing that Derome le jeune employed some of his father's tools in making it. This discovery lead me to look for other similar Derome bindings. This one, Lot 148 is certainly another. Here we see tools that Derome did not use for long, tools that were in part, from his fathers collection. Below I have reproduced again for comparative purposes, the only binding that we are sure was executed by J A derome, partially due to the fact the we can see the some of the decorative tools used in this binding, in bindings by Derome le jeune. |
| The binding shown as Lot. 377 is from the Sotheby's catalogue CATALOGUE OF VALUABLE PRINTED BOOKS AND FINE BINDINGS FROM THE CELEBRATED COLLECTION, THE PROPERTY OF MAJOR J.R. ABBEY Published by Messrs Sotheby & Co., London: 1965. |
| In Comparative Diagram 1, we compare the same droopy looking fleurons and even though the reproduction is not high resolution we can see that these two imprints derive from the same tool, one that was passed down from father to son. It is amazing really that Derome le jeune would use this drab tool while at the same time desperately trying to imitate Dubuisson by blatently copying his tools and employing them in identical ways, here is the beginning of Derome's work, a poor imitator. |
| In comparative Diagram 2, we see just how far Derome was ready to go to copy Dubuisson. these corner tools are a sort of signature, many people recognize the corner tools of their favorite binder, when you copy someone's corner tool its like a forged signature, and this copy is very close you won't be able to know the difference with the naked eye and without a photographic reference which was of course not available in 1760. Even so this work by Derome isn't very impressive, in my copy of this 1955 Giraud-Badin catalogue, all the prices were penciled in and next to this binding is marked '75' one of the lowest. |
| If you have studied the work of Louis-Marie Michon Les reliures mosaïquées du XVIIIeme siècle, Paris, 1956, you will discover that he makes a big deal concerning a fer au trident, whenever he saw the trident, he claimed that the binding was by J A Derome, well then this must be that very trident passed on to Derome le jeune.. THIS could be a huge discovery because this is not the trident found on all those bindings that were decorated by Dubuisson but attributed to J A Derome by Michon. I must admit that I was wrong to say J A Derome never decorated any bindings himself, here we might have proof that he did, proof that he did not make all the mosaics that have been attrbuted to him on the basis of this trident. |
| In Comparative Diagram 4, we see another example of how closely Derome copied the Dubuisson tools, and there are more examples in this early binding by Derome |
| In Comparative Diagram 5, we see another Derome imprint that copies the Dubuisson imprint pd-57, I am not sure if this is the J A derome imprint that we see in the spine compartments of Lot 377. However I want to move onto some imprints in this 148 Derome le jeune binding that might actually be from J A Derome tools. |
| In Comparative Diagram 6, we see some imprint pairs that I have extracted from binding 148, these do not look like Derome le jeune tools that I can remember, and I began to wonder if they are actually J A derome tools used by Derome le jeune. Then I went one step further to try to isolate these imprints and when I finally got a clean example I started looking for any other similar imprints in the collections of Dubuisson, Douceur, Jubert... oh oh! Jubert has a tool like this... |
|
Here we run into a conundrum, it has been almost 10 years since I catalogued this example of a pair of tools used by Jubert on a signed binding by Derome le jeune. Derome put his ticket inside but the tools on the outside are mainly those of Jubert. We can see now that Jubert also used also this pair of tools. I doubt whether the imprints in Comparative Diagram 7 could be from different tools they are too similar with parallel dissymmetry, my reconstruction of the real shape of these imprints is rather weak, I suspect that these imprints are actually identical. Let us suppose for a minute that Jubert was working for Derome as a doreur using a mixture of his own tools and those of Derome here again we have confirmation of this. Below I show this binding, Lot 12 with the catalogue description, when I first examined this binding I was sure that some of the tools were Derome tools while most were obviously Juberts now we can add another Derome tool to the list Jubert was using... however the question still is whether or not this tool was actually used by J A Derome. (see this page for details) (see this disgram for Lot 12 and tools) We should not not get lost here, the importance of this page is the discovery of a very early Derome le jeune binding (1760) partially decorated with the tools of his father Jacques-Antoine Derome. |
|
click here to return to the INDEX of the Etiquette pages. 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. |
| Virtual Bookings, created by L. A. Miller | return to the Home page of VIRTUAL BOOKBINDINGS |
