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The binding shown above is found in the 1997 Librairie SOURGET - CATALOGUE N° XVI MANUSCRITS et LIVRES Précieux, lot No. 76. I have included here the lot description. We are told that this binding has been decorated in gold with a plaque by Dubuisson, the hand painted armories protected with a cover of mica, are those of Comte de Jory, the spine and board edges decorated with gold tooling, guilded page edges, interior roulette with doublure and endpapers in pink moire (silk). Most interesting of all is a quote from Edouard Rahir concerning this plaque... "This plaque, totally different from the models created by binders such as Derome, Padeloup, was designed by Dubuisson, an ornamental artist who also provided models of decorations for woodwork, sculptures..." I have often pondered this question, who designed the plaques, Rahir boldly tells us it was Dubuisson, as I have always suspected, and when was Dubuisson designing plaques? long before he became a binder or doreur. This particular plaque 184a is first on Rahirs list of Dubuisson plaques (see this page about the Dubuisson plaques) Rahir gives a date of 1744 for this plaque, however I have discovered that this plaque was in use as early as 1741, this is a few years before Dubuisson was working as binder. It seems obvious that after he designed these plaques he made tools or had tools made with the same sort of designs. It would not surprise me if Dubuisson actually made the plaques himself, not just designed them. The Dubuisson plaques and subsequent tools were to have a huge influence on 18th century decorative bookkbinding. These plaques are like a futuristic vision of the decorative tools and designs of the next 4 decades. |
| In Comparative Diagram 1, I show the 1741 Almanach Royal, this binding is decorated with the arms of the Queen of Spain, Barbara of Portugal and is found on the HISTORICAL BINDING DATABASE - ARTISTIC (click here to visit this important site which is part of the Royal Library of Spain. |
| In Comparative Diagram 3 and 4 we can see just how much Dubuisson's plaques influenced binders such as Le Monnier who used a large corner stamp fashioned after a similar design detail in Dubuisson's plaque (Rahir 184a) |
| We discover something very interesting in Comparative Diagram 5. I myself thought Pierre-Paul Dubuisson started his work as a binder and doreur in 1746 at the earliest and this is what the BnF has on their page for Dubuisson (click here to see it) "Reçu maître le 2 mai 1746" however we see here that the same Dubuisson signature fleuron that he used as a centerpiece in his spine compartments in the early part of his career is also found in the spine compartments of this 1744 Almanach Royal. (see this page for more on the pd-52 imprint). There is no doubt that the tools used to decorate this 1744 spine are the same Dubuisson tools that he was using for the same purpose in the early 50's. |
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click here to return to the Dubuisson mosaic INDEX. click here to see more Pierre-Paul Dubuisson 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. |
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