| The binding shown above is found in Catalogue XXI Librairie Sourget: by Patrick and Elisabeth Sourget: Item No. 148: pg. 370. I found this while hunting through all my catalogues looking for the same Dubuisson spine plaque as found on my 1743 Almanach Royal. On the previous page I show a collection of 5 Almanach Royal (1728-1732) where we see that the 1729 and 1732 are decorated with a different pallet to that which typically found on these bindings after 1732. This older pallet we might call a variation of the sharks tooth design, with pods alternating with flowers (Alternating Sharks Tooth) AST for short pd-p-ast. Now it just so happens that this 1729 Sourget example 148 has the AST pallet and it is found on the 1732 mosaic shown below. |
| In Comparative Diagram 2 we can see that these AST pallet examples are identical as shown by the overlay. The 1732 binding has been flattened out to show both boards and is as such slightly wider than the 1729 example |
| In Comparative Diagram 3 the green arrow 'a' is pointing out that this lower leaf is shorter than its counter part on the left (the green arrow 'b'). The green arrow 'c' is pointing to the same arrangement on the next flower and 'd' pointing to the left leaf that is noticeably longer. The green arrow 'e' is pointing out that this gap is different (larger) than that opposite. The green arrow 'f' is pointing to the fact that this lower petal is not well centered on the stem. Although this detailed analysis may seem a bit over the top, we need to identify this pallet securely due to the large amount of copying going on (remind me to mention Boyet's rodeo pallet, see Reliures françaises du XVIIe siècle : Chefs-d'oeuvre du musée Condé 2002, de Isabelle de Conihout (Auteur), Pascal Ract-Madoux (Auteur), Jean Viardot (Préface), page 68, binding example 37. |
| I found this low resolution example by searching high and low on the internet for 1729 Almanach Royals. Then I had the rather risky idea of searching eBay for anything 1729, knowing that I would be tempted to buy anything that came up looking like an AST pallet and it was not long before I found the perfect binding, that I now show below. Not only did it have the AST Pallet but it also had the same spine plaque as the 1729 Voiture binding (shown at the top of the page). |
| In Comparative Diagram 6 we see that the framing of the panels is different in each example, perhaps due to panel size restrictions. If we called the first spine panel plaque SPP-1 then we see here another that we can call SPP-2. In looking for these plaques you soon discover that there are individual tools used by other binders (Boyet) that look very much like the center fleurons of these plaques. I am not going to show them here as it may confuse the subject, however one must wonder how this came about, who was copying who? |
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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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