| On this page I want to show you something that many have overlooked, It is the decoration of spine panels, which for centuries was usually achieved with the application of several tools, however in this case it has been achieved through the use of a single small plaque cleverly designed to imitate the usual multi-tool decoration. In fact many are fooled by this method and it is not always easy to identify. However in bindings where the individual panels are of slightly different heights we can observe that the plaque will not fit in the corners of the panels as the normal multi-tool decoration would, sometimes the plaque is too large and covers the framing filet borders. |
| In Comparative Diagram 1, we show a scan on one side and a photo on the other, the scan is blurred due to the fact that the scanner (flatbed) lacks any depth of field and cannot therefore focus on the curved surface of the spine, however it can still provide a very accurate measurement of the the vertical distance in the middle of the panel, thus the length of the centerpiece fleuron can be measured very accurately however the lack of detail over as well as blur renders such scans less valuable than a high resolution photo. However you cannot get accurate measurements from a photo. We can see that this is the same panel simply by the fact that the plaque has not filled the panel very well. |
| In Comparative Diagram 2, we can see that the fleurons and all the ornamental details are exactly the same, this is not so obvious to the casual observer who in fact might be doubtful that they are, however the overly sweeps aside all doubts. |
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In Comparative 3 - we see the spine from a 1738 Almanach Royal from the Royal Library collection. Thanks to the excellent work of the library staff in recording these Almanachs and making it available online, we find scaled high resolution photos of many aspects of this Almanach. The spine of which has been decorated in an identical fashion as that of our 1743 Almanach Royal. We know that Pierre-Paul Dubuisson decorated many of the Almanach Royals in their collection and we can see an early Dubuisson plaque decorating a 1741 Almanach in that collection. This binding also has a spine decorated with the same spine panel plaques as those of the Semaine Sainte bindings shown on the previous page as well as the large fleur de lis and palmette pallet. |
| In Comparative Diagram 5 we discover the same spine panel decoration, however the pallet is not the same as our 1743 example. On the next page we will explore this highly interesting and important 1732 binding. |
| In Comparative Diagram 6 we can show, with the overlay in this digram (click to enlarge) that these imprints derive from the same Dubuisson tool (plaque). |
| I show above five Almanach Royals that are found online in a 2014 Sothebys auction catalogue. This remarkable collection is of great help in our research here. We can see that the Dubuisson spine panel plaque was in use as early as 1728 and that the spine decoration of the 1732 example shows the same pallet as the 1732 Almanach Royal shown above. We can imagine therefore that hundreds of Almanachs were decorated with this very same spine panel plaque as we find on our 1743 eBay example. Below I show 4 more Almanach Royals from the same Sothebys auction catalogue here we see 1734 and 1735 examples with identical 1743 spine decoration. |
| We have shown that many of the Almanach Royals were decorated with the same Dubuisson tools from as early as 1728 and in that case we can assume that Rene Dubusson must have made these early bindings. We also know that Pierre-Paul Dubuisson eventually took over the job of decorating these bindings, what we don't know is exactly when this happened. The research in these pages will perhaps allow us to solve this question. |
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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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