| I had a number of reasons for starting this page, the first was to try to prove that the roulette that frames the boards of the 1729 Fontenelle binding shown on the previous page is the same roulette that is found on Le Sacre de Louis XV bindings shown above and below. The first is an important example from Barber and the second is a more or less identical example that can be found in the Gallica digital collections of the Bibliotheque nationale de France. |
| Both Barber and the BnF state that these bindings were made to be presented to Louis XV on the 24th of December 1731. If you take the time to look through Barber's tool catalogues you will find that he has catalogued this roulette as Roll 48, I show it below in Comparative Diagram 1, you will notice that he has referenced W.Cats. 430 (shown at the top of this page) and states that Padeloup's ticket is found inside. Equally the Bnf LB38-232 is stated to contain Padeloup's ticket: |
| "Reliure exécutée à Paris vers 1731-1733 par l'atelier d'Antoine-Michel Padeloup dit le Jeune, dont l'étiquette est collée au bas de la planche intitulée Nom des peintres et graveurs, placée dans cet exemplaire avant la table finale : « Relié par Padeloup le jeune / Place Sorbonne à Paris » (étiquette A)" |
| Fortunately one can enlarge the Gallica digital images and download any parts that you have selected, at a 400dpi resolution, this is very handy as you can compare things exactly, thus in Comparative Diagram 1, you see strips of this roulette compared at the same scale. I noticed some matching details in the Fontenelle examples and Barber's ROLL 48, then I decided to go further and analyse the BnF LB38-232 examples, to be absolutely certain about the length of the roulette. This analysis is shown in Comparative Diagram 2, and demonstrates that the length of this roulette is not as Barber states "six design units repeat at 108 mm." it is in fact seven design units that repeat at 126.4 mm. However this is the same roulette in all of the examples we see the same excentricities that are repeated regularly, allowing us to calculate exactly the length of the roulette. |
| I want to present here another of Barber's catalogued tools, this is FL 128 shown below in Comparative Diagram 3, this "swag" is found according to Barber on another signed Padeloup binding, I have compared it to the same swag found on our 1729 Fontenelle that is also a signed Padeloup binding, so I am guessing that this is the same "swag" FL 128 found in Padeloup's signed bindings. |
| There are a number of issues that we need to consider, the first is that Padeloup was not officially the Royal binder until 1733, up until then Boyet still held that post and one would think that Boyet would have been in charge of these bindings. We do not even know who made the plaques that make up these lavish dentelles. Now that we have discovered these interconnected bindings with tools linking back to the Dubuisson workshops it would be easy to guess that Rene Dubuisson was behind the creation of these luxury dentelle bindings and that he may be the person who actually pressed the gold onto the boards and finished them with his own roulettes. |
|
click here to return to the HOME page. click here to see an INDEX of the 2017 pages. 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 |