| When I started studying the decorative bindings of Derome le jeune compared with those of Pierre-Paul Dubuisson, in May of 2007 (see this page near the bottom). I tackled the issue of the caged bird tool, (Barber's terminology) or fer à l'oiseau as it is known in France. It didn't take long to discover that this tool has long been associated with the dentelles of Derome le jeune as though he was the originator. Dubuisson who appears to have been forgotten, was making dentelles with the original fer à l'oiseau long before Derome, in fact Derome appears to have plagiarized Dubuisson's bird and dentelle that preceded him by at least a decade. It is Dubuisson that should be famous for this invention, however this is now a bit like people thinking that Americans invented pizza, Americans maybe made it more famous than it was… anyway long story short, I was forever trying to find some good reproductions of these birds (they are very small) to vindicate Dubuisson's case, and it is only just now some 15 years later that I have at last a Derome binding with dentelle and bird to scan. |
| I think we can agree that Derome's fer à l'oiseau is really a copy, one cannot escape the fact that they have too much in common to be just an accidental resemblance, of course there will be those who will pipe up saying Barber said it was Padeloup's bird, if this was Padeloup's bird why did he never use it until Dubuisson was decorating bindings for him? Either way that means that this tool existed long before Derome le jeune was making dentelles. Then there might be those who will say that Jacques-Antoine Derome had one of these tools before anyone else and then probably Padeloup copied that one. The proof that I go by is that the original Dubuisson pd-4 can be seen on a 1749 Almanach Royal (see this). If anyone has found an earlier one by Derome or Padeloup I will eat my hat. |
| In Comparative Diagram 2, we see an average to medium female hand with a fer à l'oiseau placed on her fingernail for the purpose of demonstrating how very small this famous item is. |
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In Comparative Diagram 3, I show the top and bottom examples of dj-4 found on the front board and below that the top and bottom imprints found on the back board.It is interesting to observe how much a single imprint can vary with different lighting as well as with certain mysterious or accidental circumstances. One single imprint example can rarely stand as a definitive model of the original. I noticed some time ago that the triple leaf crown of the Derome fer à l'oiseau appears to have had its uppermost leaf trimmed off, perhaps by some accident. Whatever the case Derome is constantly hiding the top with some other imprint. In this case it is a tassel, so we are lucky to see at last, and barely, this broken top. That may not be broken at all, as I don't remember ever seeing it with the top nicely pointed as I am sure it must have been originally. |
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In Comparative Diagram 4, I show again this Derome roulette dj-r-10. Yesterday I said that I did not want to try to scan the inside of my eBay Derome c.1770 however today I checked again the binding and found that the front board was lose enough to attempt a scan and so we have now a high highly accurate 2400dpi scan of the inner roulette as well as the marbled pastedowns (endpapers). One of my questions about yesterdays result was my concern with the SPECULUM reproduction, was it really accurate? Were the rulers shown in the photographs really in the scan, if it was a scan etc. etc. and so it was with great pleasure that I could check everything with my scan, even though a minimum of the roulette was visible. This was not at all difficult as I knew approximately the length of the roulette, and in cutting and pasting parts of the scan together 'C' I found a convenient flaw, that was coincidentally next to my Comparative Diagram 10 detail on the previous page, shown below in Comparative Diagram 5. When all is said and done we discover that indeed the SPECULUM photo and rulers are not truly to scale and found to be in error of about 3 percent. Thus the roulette length is actually 11.02 cm and not 10.83 or 10.72 that I show here using a sample from the bottom of the board where we see more of the detail. |
| In Comparative Diagram 6 we see just how well these two marbled pastedowns match, our Derome example is a scan that has not been modified color-wise other than increased amount of contrast. This could easily be marbled paper made by the same producer, however the method of distributing the ink to create these patterns may not have been exactly the same (see this). |
| In Comparative Diagram 7 you will see 2 yellow dots, these indicate the location of the flaw in this roulette as per Comparative Diagram 5. |
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Comparative Diagram 8 was accomplished with photography so the scale is to a certain extent approximative. The margin of error might be in the 2 mm range. I have discovered another strange binding on the internet that must be by Derome as it is bearing exactly the same flower pot as our eBay Derome and is found on a 1777 Almanach Royal, this we will look at on the next page. The appearance of this flower pot on a 1777 Almanach is another indicator that our eBay 1758 Semaine Sainte with a Derome dentelle was probably not executed in 1758, and may have been made nearly 20 years later! |
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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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