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The binding shown above is Barber's W.Cat.734, I have included all of his information on this binding that he states was bound by Derome le jeune for Merande de Sainte-Just, as is noted in the 1783 Merand catalogue also noted that he paid de Rome 48 livres (or the same amount as was worth the double Louis d'or (gold coin) of 48 livres (about 1000$ in todays money or rather in todays gold).
However we know from these past we pages that this binding was never decorated by Derome, where is his famous bird tool? Here is the talented Derome, Derome le phoenix farming out the work instead of doing it himself, probably he paid Gosselin only a small part of the 48 livres and maybe never even touched the binding at all. It will be interesting to pinpoint the date when this binding was executed. Barber includes in the information about this binding a reproduction of the frontispiece from (shown below) here we can see the inner dentelle roulette. |
| In Comparative Diagram 1, we see Barber' ROLL 80 compared with various Gosselin examples including the W.Cat.734 example. We can see that Gosselin used this roulette often and it may help us to fix a date at least for the period that this roulette appears. In the ROLL 80 notes we can see six examples listed, obviously we need to look at these for clues. |
| We start with W.Cat.138. Barber includes in his information a reproduction of the title page where we can see traces of ROLL 80. You will notice in Barber's notes that he is now attributing bindings to Derome on the basis of this ROLL 80. His first mistake is being compounded and he gets himself further into this mess. However important for us is the fact that he mentions this same ROLL 80 in the 1774 W.Cat.629. Perhaps even more important is his mention of this W.Cat.138 binding being found in the 1769 Gaignat catalogue.The question is then whether this binding was made for Gaignat in which case it may date to 1768 and be one of Gosselin's early bindings. This is also suggested by a number of unusual early tools |
| In Comparative Diagram 4 I have arranged a collection of imprints from W.Cat.138, some of these Barber catalogued however some he did not. The strangest of all these is gos-8-6, I have not seen this imprint before in a Gosselin decoration, however it is obviously of the same type as Delorme's del-8-6 and I have given the Gosselin imprint the same catalogue designation even though I have not yet recorded the other type 8 variations for Gosselin, Delorme used this tool early in his career and I suspect that its use here may be a sign of Gosselin early work. In any case we do not see it in any of the past 30 or so dentelle bindings recorded in these pages. Another strange item is gos-7-6 it has never been cataloged before either and it is only just now that it has been given this designation. The imprints shown in the middle of the diagram without a catalogue number are not very clear in this reproduction and so remain as uncertain entities. On the next page we will look at W.Cat.204 that is linked by the corner tool DCR 5. |
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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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