| I found the Fetil binding shown above, in a 2016 auction catalogue of Thierry de Maigret: LIVRES ANCIENS - LIVRES DU XIXE ET MODERNES, DOCUMENTS HISTORIQUES ET AUTOGRAPHES DE LA RÉVOLUTION ET DE L'EMPIRE vendredi 04 mars (see this). Unfortunately you cannot enlarge the auction reproduction without a loss of detail, however I was glad anyway to find this and I was determined to enlarge it to its correct size. This was possible due to the drawer handle roulette (rf-r-7) that is also found on a British Library Fetil example C34g7 (see this). In the British Library reproduction we have a scale, so we can know exactly the size of this roulette. |
| We see in Comparative Diagram 2, a method by which you can usualy discover the length of this roulette imprint. First you have to find an obvious reference point, this is not always easy until and if you find good reference, when you do the rest falls in place. Then when you know the length of rf-r-7 you find and extract an example from the STATUTS and resize it to the correct dimension. Transform the amount needed to make this correction as a percentage and then apply that to your auction reproduction. |
| Now that we can extract a spine panel from the STATUTS binding in an exact size, we can then easily compare it with similar Fetil panels. You will notice that all 4 of these panels have employed the same corner fleuron pair Barber's SP-34 (a and b) These same imprints are found on Fetil's signed binding W.Cat.502. What Barber fails to mention is the fact that these imprints are only the top part of larger fleurons, we know this because you can partially see them, particularly in the Marmontel panel. When I made this diagram I noticed that the C34g7 panel and our BREVIARIUM panel appeared to have the same filler imprints between the corner decorations… even with a lot of magnification these imprints are hard to see. |
| I found today in my files this rare high resolution British Library Database of Bookbindings photograph of C34g7 in glorious color. What a fortunate discovery, now armed with this high resolution image I looked again at the roulette and discovered something interesting that I suspected before but was not able to measure it so exactly. |
| In Comparative Diagram 5, we see two strips of roulette imprint extracted from the high resolution photo of C34g7, example 'A'. was taken from the outside of the board opposite to 'B' that runs beside the spine. Normally you would expect these roulette imprints to be exactly the same length, however there is a slight difference, a difference that bedevils roulette researchers who are expecting things to be identical. There is a difference of about 1.4 mm, the roulette imprint next to the spine is shorter. I suspect, although this is only my speculation, that the leather stretches or is more able to stretch on the outside of the boards. See this page for Denise Gid re roulette lengths. |
| In Comparative Diagram 5 I have again returned to these panels that share the same fleurons. The small imprint that is found along the sides of the panel inbetween the SP 34a and 34b we can call rf-7-8. It seem likely that these panels were decorated at a similar period. The BREVIARIUM publication is dated 1729, we know Fetil decorated this binding much later. There is a clue perhaps in the arms of Joseph Mathias de Barral, who, according to Wikipedia (see this) was appointed Bishop of Troyes in 1761. I think he would not have this coat of arms before that date so we might guess that this Fetil STATUTS binding was made after 1761. If it was made around the same time as our BREVIARIUM then it must be from after 1762. |
| In Comparative Diagram 7, we see (vaguely) the tiny fleuron rf-7-8, to see the other rf-7 types or models as well as an INDEX to the bindings of René-François Fétil see this page. |
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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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