| I found this wonderful reproduction shown above at the web site of Musée Médard.They say that inside this binding there is a manuscript note attributing this binding to Padeloup (impossible because he died in 1758) however they think it was probably the work of Derome. We now know that it was actually decorated by J B Gosselin. I have catalogued all the imprints that are found on this binding, thinking it will be good to have a collection of earlier imprints to compare with the 1785 imprints of the previous page. |
| In Comparative Diagram 1- imprints that were also on the 1785 MS 1546 have been cataloged with white ink, those with blue ink, were already recorded in the old MM binder catalogue but are probably early tools and those in green are tools that I have not seen or recorded previously they are associated with a 1768 binding that I have in my possession and scanned at 1200 dpi (click here to see these pages). We know from Thoinan's notes on J B Gosswlin that he officially became a binder in 1767, and perhaps the 1768 binding is one of his earliest. However as I have 1200 dpi scans of the imprints, I discovered some interesting things. |
| The image shown above is a greatly enlarged imprint scan, click on this image to see the full 1200dpi image. This image is actually only about an inch across, you can see that tiny lines have been cut into the imprint, running roughly parallel to each other, they are difficult to see with the naked eye, let alone trying to engrave these finely detailed lines. If you have an unsteady hand you won't be able to do this even with a lifetime of trying. The blue arrows are pointing to identical line details. I doubt that anyone could create a copy of such a tool without it being obvious at this level of magnification. Therefore we can safely assume that the imprints derive from the same tools on both of these bindings. |
| Sometimes we need something to give us an indication of scale, to be able to really appreciate the size of these imprints. Here in Comparative Diagram 3, I show them next to an average fingerprint, you can see that the finely engraved lines of the gold tooled imprints are narrower than even the lines of a fingerprint. |
| However when it comes to imprint pair gos-9a-3 and 9-3b-3, these are clearly different when compared with the 1768 imprints of the same type model. Thus explaining at least their different catalogue numbers, of course one wonders what is going on here, why do we have two nearly identical tools of this type? We can speculate that the 1768 pair was stolen or lost or broken or worse, loaned to someone. If this turns out be the case, then this could be a useful chronological marker. |
| In Comparative Diagram 5, I show the 1771 imprints that correspond to the mm-6-2 type model, these imprints are the same, however there are small details that are not perfect in the type model due to not having a really clear high resolution example as we will see in the next diagram. |
| Here we see something really fantastic, in Comparative Diagram 6 we show 2 BnF B-183 imprints from an 1777 binding that the Bibliotheque nationale de France lists as being from an unidentified workshop (see this BnF page). Now look closely at this diagram, click to see the full enlargement, study carefully the engraved lines on this small imprint, proof certain that these imprints all derive from the same J B Gosselin tool. Gosselin decorated these bindings, the work derives from his workshop, the BnF binding B-183 has now been identified! B-182 was also by Gosselin, not Derome le jeune as we will show in the next few pages. |
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click here to see the INDEX of the pages from 2017. 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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