| This interesting Bible showed up on eBay in late September 2019, the image shown above is one of original photos posted by the seller. This was enticing for me as the dentelle looked very much like a Boyet dentelle that we have been examining recently on another page (click here to see it). On that page we were looking at imitation Boyet bindings and in particular a dentelle that was a weak attempt to copy the Boyet example. I show this in Comparative Diagram 1, where we see two Boyet examples of this dentelle and in the middle the "Histoire Secrete" imitation. Now due to the fact that the dentelle of this 1739 was in blind (blindstamped only) it was not easy to be sure that this was an actual Boyet dentelle, however it appeared to be much closer than the "Histoire Secret" example was, in fact after this previous research I was quite sure that it was. So I had to bid hoping that no one else was of the same opinion. Some books especially blindstamped examples from the 18th and 19th centuries do not seem to attract much attention, and almost no one bid on this item so I managed to win it for a rediculously low price, shipping it to me in Canada from France cost nearly as much. |
| Once it arrived I put it quickly on the scanner and took a number of photographs, to ensure that I would see the important details. But here I must tell you about something that occured in the week before this Bible arrived. Someone wrote to me about a binding that they were researching, it possessed an inner dentelle that appeared very similar to a Derome dentelle that I have catalogued as dj-R-11 (click here to see this). It was a simple matter to show that his example, was not the same size as the Derome tool and he knew as well as I, that his example did not have the unusual double motif pattern of dj-R-11. Now by a total coincidence (nothing happens by accident) what do I find inside the 1739 Bible? An inner dentelle that appears identical to the Derome dj-R-11 including the double motif! Here is a real conundrum, how can this Bible have a Boyet dentelle on the outside and a Derome dentelle on the inside??? |
| In Comparative Diagram 3 we compare the blindstamped 1737 dentelle with a real Boyet dentelle, unfortunately at this high resolution (click the image to see a far greater enlargement) we see that these dentelles although very similar are not exactly the same. This is disturbing, when you see something that has been so well copied that you will not spot the difference without a magnifying glass. Who would do this? This binding is very well made, the edges guilded and inside an inner dentelle... but wait is it a Derome? |
| In Comparative Diagram 4, and 5, we see that these two roulettes are have the same unit size and double motif anomally, this is too mysterious, you have to look at the enlargement carefully to see the differences here, that you would not be able to discern with the naked eye. Here we have a double conundrum, Derome le jeune may not have used this roulette until around 1780, if this 1739 example is a copy of Derome's roulette, then this Bible would have to have been made somewhat later than 1780. On the other hand Derome's example may be a copy of the 1739 roulette however this would seem even more unlikely. This would not be so mysterious for me, if I had not been measuring and studying closely this very roulette a week before. The chances of this happening I would say are very remote... now perhaps there is something that I must discover here, who was the binder of this 1739 Bible? |
| In Comparative Diagram 6, we see within the obscurity some tantalizing clues as to who this binder might have been, the central fleuron of the spine compartment, looks familiar, perhaps we can find it in Barber's catalogue... |
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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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