| The reproduction of the binding shown above comes from an 1993 Ader Tajan auction catalogue Bibliothèque d'un Amateur: TRÈS BEAUX LIVRES ANCIENS, Paris juin 4 1993. I have included the detailed information for this item (lot 129). I was just looking through this catalogue again to see if I missed anything, and sure enough I find this very interesting binding. Of course we see the Plumet swag as Barber calls them (p-4-3) that we can see in our eBay Plumet, this is enough to set us off on another search and as I see Fetil tools I decided to look through my own Fetil pages as it has been ages since working on them. The proof being that I forgot completely a Fetil binding that is also on a 1757 Baskerville VIRGILE (see this).(note: read the description on that page for an explanation as to why this binding is a real Fetil.) Now this is great coincidence because here we have chance to examine and compare these two bindings, a pure Fetil compared with the 129 VIRGILE that appears to have been made with a mixture of Douceur, Fetil and Plumet tools. |
| In Comparative Diagram 1, I show the boards of these bindings side by side after manipulating the 129 item with photoshop, resizing and re-proportioning it to remove the distortion created by the camera angle. Immediately we see a lot of imprints that are the same in both examples |
| In Comparative Diagram 2, we see a highly accurate 2400dpi scan compared with our resized example, this test assures us that the reproportioned image is reasonably accurate, and that these imprints are the same. There are a number of obvious Fetil tools that I have detailed on the page linked above, however I want to show you something that appears to be a Louis Douceur tool. |
| In Comparative Diagram 3, we see a spine panel from item 129 VIRGILE with a centerpiece fleuron that appears to be the Douceur imprint d-21-10. However a closer inspection may reveal that this is only a clever copy. |
| In Comparative Diagram 4, I show two Douceur binding details that have been decorated with the d-21-10 imprint. These are from some of Douceurs earlier dentelle bindings and can easily be shown to be the work of Douceur himself. The pallets at the base of the spines are solid indicators of the identity of this workshop. |
| In Comparative Diagram 5, we see Barber's DCR 10, this tool appears to be the same as found on the 129 VIRGILE and the Fetil bindings. |
| In Comparative Diagram 6, we compare a 129 Virgile imprint, with Barber's DCR 10, we show also an overlay where the 129 VIRGILE imprint has been reversed and it's transparency reduced to 50% and then placed over the DCR 10 with a slight amount of offset. Here we find a good match and more, as these two imprints are the same size, thus confirming that our 129 VIRGILE has been resized correctly. |
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In Comparative Diagram 7, we see another overlay comparing a 129 VIRGILE example with a binding found in the digital reproductions of the Bibliotheque nationale de France that has been attributed by their experts to Louis Douceur, this binding has a lot in common with the 129 VIRGILE, as can be see in Comparative Diagram 8. On the next page we are going to make some important observations concering Barber's W.Cat. 248. You will see in Barber's notes on DCR 10 (shown in Comparative Diagram 5), that he has referenced this binding as a source of DCR 10, and as we now know that Fetil used this tool, we need to look at W.Cat. 248 more closely. |
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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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