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French Decorative Bookbinding - Eighteenth Century

Jean-Baptiste Gosselin - aux armes


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The binding reproduced above is found in a 1938 catalogue of Sotheby and Co. Catalogue of the third and final portion of the famous library principally of fine bindings, rare engravings, illustrated books and french literature formed by the late Mortimer L. Schiff ... which will be sold by auction ... on Tuesday 6th of December, 1938. This colour reproduction is from the days when colour printing was still in its infancy, so it isn's as sharp as we would like it to be. I found it by accident while looking for similar bindings. Barber describes this binding in relation to his DST 38 tool model however he gives a different reference to it as being found in a 1993 Tajan catalogue (item no. 128).



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Comparative Diagram 1 - Gosselin corner details - Virgile vs 1785 Almanach Royal



In Comparative Diagram 1, we see the DST 38 imprint from the Sotheby reproduction and the same imprint on our 1785 Almanach Royal. There are many similarities in these corner decorations, enough so that we might imagine that these bindings may have been made around the same period.



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Comparative Diagram 2 - Tajan 1993 Catalogue item 128



In Comparative Diagram 2, I show the complete Tajan no. 128 reproduction and information on this same binding from; Très beaux livres anciens - Bibliothèque d'un amateur - Ader Tajan Drouot 1993 however with an added advantage of showing the spine decoration, here we see another important fleuron that will help us identify more bindings by Gosselin.



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Comparative Diagram 3 - Gosselin spine panel and palette



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Comparative Diagram 4 - Barber CCB 10 vs Gosselin imprint from Virgile



In Comparative Diagram 4 we see Barber's CBB 10, he notes the the "right bird's wing is more vertical" and this is exactly what we see in the Tajan reproduction.



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Comparative Diagram - Barber DST 38 - 41 tools vs various Gosselin specimens



In Comparative Diagram 5, I have reproduced Barber's DST type models 38 to 41 along with comparative examples from the signed Gosselin binding SALLUST 1772 as well as examples from the Sotheby reproduction shown at the top of this page. Note that Barber mentions the SULLUST 1772 binding, however he shows the DST 41 imprint at the wrong scale and mentions it as being in the H. Tenschert collection in 1999 yet it is found in the Sourget 1999 catalogue XIX?. The importance of all this is that if Barber had of noticed the signature of Gosselin on the spine of this binding he would have had to change completely his attribution of these tools to Gosselin and that would mean also having to change the description of dozens of other Gosselin tools that he ascribed to Derome le jeune, indeed a dreadful conundrum especially if he made this discovery after nearly completing his catalogue. Such is destiny that it can be changed entirely by a small obscure detail. However we must suppose that Barber never found this signature and the result is that the BnF have swallowed Barber's mistake without hesitation and resultantly propagated the error by attributing the work of Gosselin to Derome le jeune in their supposed Derome examples, such as this...

http://reliures.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/cdt9xt0j/

"Si cette reliure ne peut être, en l'état actuel des recherches, nominativement attribuée à un atelier particulier, on peut en revanche souligner la proximité du matériel de dorure utilisé ici avec celui de l'atelier de Nicolas-Denis Derome, avec notamment, aux quatre coins des plats, la paire de traits anguleux associée à une paire de frondaisons striées à base recourbée (respectivement proches de Barber 2013, DCT 55 et FR 71), la roulette florale dorée au bord des plats (proche de Barber 2013, ROLL 49) et la double roulette à motif floral stylisé ornant les chasses (proche de Barber 2013, ROLL 98)."

This is an unforgivable error by the National Library of France, where are their own experts? why are they depending on Barber's tool catalogue? That we have now shown to be filled with innumerable attribution errors.

A lot of people; book collectors, booksellers, auction experts all over the world are depending on the BnF for an accurate high level expertise when it comes to attributions, their failure in this category in this age of ever faster computers, high speed internet, G5, artificial intelligence and all the rest, can only be deemed as unacceptable. This problem is not complicated, all that is needed is extensive cataloguing of the tools of each particular binder. Barber's system of cataloguing does not often identify the owners of the tools catalogued. The tools are arranged in an order based on their design or shapes with little or no information concerning who the tools belonged to. His information about which bindings such tools are found is on the other hand very useful and we are going to try to track down the bindings associated with these DST 38 to 41 tools that we know belonged to Gosselin.



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click here to see an INDEX of the 2017 pages.

see below links to previous work






Atelier I B 31/10/2014





Icons of the Renaissance 06/02/2014





Atelier au trefle 22/12/2014




Atelier Royal 1518 - 1524 09/11/2014





Unraveling G. D. Hobson's book on fanfares 27/11/2014





16c fanfare on eBay 23/11/2014




another Padeloup binding on eBay 07/12/2014


the last Padeloup fanfare?


Rare Padeloup binding on eBay 15/11/2014



Pierre-Paul Dubuisson's work attributed to Derone le jeune 23/10/2014 (unfinished work now finished)


Pierre-Paul Dubuisson's work attributed to Douceur 22/10/2014 (an under contruction page finished at last)


Louis-Marie Michon - the 1956 Disaster 19/10/2014 (an unfinished page finished at last)


Louis XII Dolphins motif 03/02/2014


Aristophanes Binder 1543 02/02/2014


Atelier des reliures LOUIS XII - Atlas Catalan 12/01/2014


Atelier des reliures LOUIS XII - FRANÇOIS Ier - Linacre bindings 05/01/2014


Atelier des reliures LOUIS XII - FRANÇOIS Ier c. 1500-1520


Atelier des reliures LOUIS XII - FRANÇOIS Ier - Chronology 16/01/2014


Atelier des reliures LOUIS XII - FRANÇOIS Ier - Inventory - binding No. 29 19/01/2014


Atelier des reliures LOUIS XII - FRANÇOIS Ier - Inventory - binding No. 39 19/01/2014


Atelier des reliures LOUIS XII - FRANÇOIS Ier - The mysterious disappearance of François Tissard d'Amboise 23/01/2014


Atelier des reliures LOUIS XII - FRANÇOIS Ier - The Simon Vostre fiasco 18/01/2014


L'Atelier Simon Vostre 1486-1521 01/01/2014


L'Atelier de Pierre Roffet 1511-1533 - TOOL CATALOGUE 26/01/2014


L'Atelier de Pierre Roffet 1511-1533 27/12/2013


Pierre Roffet - fleur-de-lis binder 28/12/2013


Fleur-de-lis Binder 1525-1540 27/11/2013


Du Saix Master 02/12/2013


Atelier Étienne Roffet 1538-1549 12/12/2013


Atelier Jean Picard 1538-1547


Imitative Binder c.1540 15/12/2013


Salel Binder 1540 17/11/2013


Atelier Ruette 1606-1669 INVENTORY


Atelier Macé Ruette 1606-1644


Atelier du Maitre Doreur 1622-1638


Atelier Antoine Ruette 1638-1669


Atelier des Caumartin 1652-1715


Atelier de Charenton 1670-1685


Atelier Luc-Antoine Boyet 1685-1733


Atelier Antoine-Michel Padeloup. dit Le Jeune 1685-1758


Atelier Louis Douceur 1721-1769


Atelier Pierre-Paul Dubuisson 1746-1762


Atelier Nicolas-Denis Derome, dit Derome le Jeune 1761-1788


Atelier Jean-Pierre Jubert, 1771-1793?


Atelier MM binder, 1770-179-?





A word of Caution

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

l.a.miller@mail.pf