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I show at the top of this page, Giles Barber's reproduction and description of W.Cat 279. This is from his 2013 publication: Catalogue of Printed Books and Bookbindings: The James A. de Rothschild Bequest at Waddesdon Manor Hardback Waddesdon Manor English By (author) Giles Barber , Edited by Geoffrey de Bellaigue , Edited by Rosamund Griffin Books by The Rothschild Foundation Barber passed away before his work was actually published and I think now he would be glad to see it corrected, which is what I am attempting to do here, by redacting his notes on this page. I think Barber would be shocked by the many errors that appear to have been missed by the editors, such as the numerous references to ROLL 120 which cannot be found in the tool catalogue. We now know and can irrefutably prove that the imprints found on this binding derive from the tools of Delorme. However, what I want to point out here is the provenance of W.Cat 279. We see in the center of the covers a rare example of the arms of Louis-Stanislas, Comte de Provence, and future King Louis XVIII. This Delorme binding was then, made for a most prestigious client and considering what we have learned in the past few pages we can be reasonably sure that it was made not long after 1773. This was a critical point in French history with the death of Louis XV on the 10th of May 1774, At this time Louis-Stanislas was 18 years old and recently married to Marie Joséphine of Savoy, Princess of France and Countess of Provence by marriage to the future King Louis XVIII of France, she was, in the opinion of Bourbon Royalist Legitimists, regarded as titular 'Queen of France' when her husband assumed the title of King in 1795 upon the death of his nephew, the titular King Louis XVII of France. Louis Stanislas was the grandson of the reigning King Louis XV, and in April 1771, when he was 15, Louis Stanislas's education was formally concluded, and his own independent household was established, "which astounded contemporaries with its extravagance: in 1773, the number of his servants reached 390". In the same month his household was founded, Louis was granted several titles by his grandfather, Louis XV: Duke of Anjou, Count of Maine, Count of Perche, and Count of Senoches. During this period of his life he was often known by the title Count of Provence. |
| We further learn from this wikipedia article that on 17 December 1773, he was inaugurated as a Grand Master of the Order of St. Lazarus. and one might expect that the grand cross of St. Lazarus that is found within his armorial stamp, appears after this date. |
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The painting shown above is by
François-Hubert Drouais (found in the Collections of the Chateau de Versailles) and said to date to 1775, if this is correct this may have been one of the last portraits that he ever painted, actually I think it may have been painted in 1774, in any case we can see that Louis is wearing a grand cross of the Order of Saint Lazarus. Now you might wonder why I am delving into such detail on this. I have to confess that for the past few months I have been distracted by a project that is intimately linked to this subject, namely a virtual reconsruction of the Palace of the Grand Master of the Knights of Rhodes, thus for me this seems another odd coincidence. Our interest here however is to show that in the period starting around 1773, Pierre Delorme made numerous bindings for the comte and comtesse de Provence. considering this as well as his signed 1775 Almanach Royal for the Queen of France, Marie-Antoinette, leaves little doubt that he held a very high place in the history of French bookbinders of the 18th century, and yet the BnF have not even identified him correctly and show only this single signed binding that they attribute incorrectly to Jean Delorme. On their page concerning Jean Delorme they site Barber (ref. page 150) which is only a page that is part of a comprehensive list of registered binders from the second third of the 18th century France, i.e. a simple list of binders names without any details other than the date that they attained their papers as members of the bookbinders guild. It would appear that neither Barber nor the staff at the BnF bothered to read: Manuel historique et bibliographique de l'amateur de reliures by Gruel, Léon, 1841-1923 see my page on this |
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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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