| I am showing this Gosselin binding to point out the decorative technique that he has used here and on a number of bindings from the same period and particularly in 1785. It consists of filling certain areas with many small gold dots. This application of dots became popular in the mid 16th century and now reappears 200 years later. |
| In Comparative Diagram 1, we see an example from the BnF digital Gallica, and in the description fond partiellement pointillé, this is probably the correct terminology however it becomes confusing when, a century later a new set of tools evolved that are also called pointillé or fer pointillé or fers pointillés. I found this Esope binding while looking for 16th century examples of this form of decoration. It has been attributed to the Relieur de l'Ésope de Mahieu, who, according to the BnF is an unidentified bookbinder, designated by convention after the title of a work which he bound for the collector Thomas Mahieu (copy of Aesop's Fables, in the Basel folio edition of 1501 (cf. sale Paris 1931, Rahir I, n ° 514, pl.) I am always fascinated by attributions such as unidentified bookbinder where there are enough clues to really search out who this binder might be. Here they tell you that the original binding from which this binder gets his name can be found found in a Rahir catalogue. |
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In comparative diagram 2 we see a real Gosselin masterpiece that was created for Louis XVI with an equally impressive doublure that I show on another page (click here to see it). In the decoration of this binding, Gosselin has applied a partial pointille background. This is something that he never did very often, and there is some suggestion that this application means a lot of extra work and this makes the binding more expensive. It is then an even more extravagant and costly binding, giving the desired effect of a sumptious treasure fit for a king. Up until the time that I decided to investigate this binding, first revealed by Marius Michel, it seemed that no one had yet identified the binder of this famous book by Louis XVI. This is hardly a surprise when the name of Jean-Baptist Gosselin has long since been forgotten. and is still not even recognized by the experts at the BnF who seem content to follow Barber's mistake of attributing the work of Gosselin to Derome le jeune. One day, all this will be simply rectified when someone discovers within the Kings expenditures the payment for this work. |
| In Comparative Diagram 3, I show 3 pointille corner examples from Gosselin one of which is from 1785 or later, however the decor of these bindings is so similar with identical corner tool and floral arrangements, one might suspect that they were all made around the same period. Barber did not record this corner tool, suggesting also that these bindings are relatively rare. |
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The next binding that I am presenting here W.Cat.629 is from the masterful 2013 publication of Giles Barber Catalogue of Printed Books and Bookbindings : The James A. de Rothschild Bequest at Waddesdon Manor. These books are must for serious decorative bookbinding researchers, and an indispensable reference, I don't know how I managed to get this far without them. Today at last they have arrived in my hands and I can start on presenting some of the more important bindings and decorative tools that Barber has carefully studied and catalogued. As wide and profound as Barber's work was he did not discover some important clues that would have changed entirely his views on Derome le jeune and or his father Jacques-Antoine Derome. The binding that I show above W.Cat.629, Barber has attributed to Derome on the basis of Derome's ticket found in W.Cat.454 where we see the use of identical tools. We have shown, I think more than conclusively that the W.Cat.454 binding was decorated by Jean-Baptiste Gosselin, who may have been offered this work by Derome but none the less executed the entire decoration with his own tools, the same tools that we have been tracking down in these pages. Barber has given, in his description of W.Cat.629 a partial list of the tools that he has catalogued from this binding, all of these tools are in fact Gosselin tools. |
| In Comparative Diagram 4, I show Barber's DCT 31, we have looked at this tool on page 5 and here I have used this imprint to rescale the catalogue photo of this binding, with an overlay method that will ensure that we can extract imprints from it at their proper size. |
| In Comparative Diagram 5, we see this, by now, familiar Gosselin palette, Barber's PAL 84, its distinctive design is easy to spot on a bookself of hundreds of average looking palettes. Stun the experts by pointing them out, most have not yet even heard of Jean-Baptiste Gosselin who's talent largely surpased that of Derome. |
| In Comparative Diagram 6 we compare the inner dentelle roulette of W.Cat. 629 with Barber's Roll 80 and the same roulette found in the Fables shown on page 4. Barber lists 5 more bindings that are decorated with ROLL 80, we will look at some of them on the next page. |
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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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