| When I got up this morning, I had a list of things in my mind that I wanted to achieve, but one of them was to search the digital files in Gallica to make sure that I didn't miss, on any of my previous extensive searches, an Almanach Royal that was decorated by a Derome, that however was a long fruitless venture. Then tried looking for almanachs that I missed somehow with google, and found nothing. I had the feeling that I must find something so I kept on looking, almost forgetting what I was looking for, but then I stumbled on a auction site that I had never heard of, DAGUERRE they had some interesting almanachs in their last book auction in March of 2023: |
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Probably on any other occasion I would have been delighted to find an Almanach Royal decorated by the likes of Gosselin or Delorme or Jubert et al. however I was determinded to find a Derome, but after I had exahusted that search, I just started looking at all the bindings Dauguerre had in their catalogues, then out of nowhere I came across the treasure I was hoping for, in fact it was beyond my hopes, a binding by Jacques-Antoine Derome! Only the third one I have found in 15 years of looking (see this). At first I was not sure if it was but then it dawned on me, I had found the very thing that I often doubted even that it existed, an early dentelle by J.-A. Here were the same tools that I found found over 4 years ago (see this)(and this) I know what you are thinking, Louis-Marie Michon and Giles Barber have found tons, but show me the proof! Now I have found something at last. When I saw this Pucelle binding I spotted right away the drawer handle imprint that I had been working just recently (see this) only 2 weeks ago! I like to imagine that the bookbinding gods are guiding me, how is it that I find this just when I need it? |
| The photos at Deguerre are better than most, however you can only go so far with a few auction photos that are distorted and without scale. You can see from these few examples in Comparative Diagram 4, that these are indeed the same J.-A. Derome tools, tools that were virtually identical to the tools of Pierre-Paul Dubuisson. |
| You will notice that Derome has used a pair of small tools (jad-34a and 34b) extensively in the decoration of this 1756 binding. At the start of his career Pierre-Paul Dubuisson was doing goldtooling for Padeloup le jeune and using an identical set of these small tools. In Comparative Diagram 5, I have extracted examples from a 1750 Dubuisson binding that I have shown previously (see this) |
| Comparative Diagram 6, was borrowed from the 2019 page (linked above) that got lost in the shuffle, thankfully I have just discovered it now. We see something startling in these dentelle details. not only were these two decorators using identical tools but they were using them in identiical ways. The Derome detail is from the 1743 HEURES however it has a lot in common with this 1756 Voltaire. One has to wonder whether or not these decorations were actually executed around the same time. it suggests that the 1743 HEURES may not have been decorated in 1743, as I have suggested previously. Still this does not answer the question of who was copying who. |
| I present here Ernest Thoinan's notes about Jacques-Antoine Derome, from his famous book; Les Relieurs française (1500-1800) Paris 1893: |
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Was Jacques-Antoine Derome a bookbinder and a gilder at the same time, or did he only practice one or the other of these professions? As we have a certain number of mosaic bindings by him, we would be led to believe that he gilded them himself; but the inventory after his death, which Mr. Guiffrey has fortunately found, seems to prove the contrary, since there are only bookbinder's tools, without the slightest small iron to gild: "On Saturday, November 22, 1760, his eldest daughter, Marie-Anne Derome, principal tenant of a house in rue Saint-Jacques, below Saint-Benoit, had the commissioner go up to the first floor of the main building and led him to a room that had a view of the courtyard below, declaring that her father was boarding with her, and that he had died at three o'clock in the morning, in this room that she let him use and that he had furnished with his own belongings. She also added that she had in her possession a certain number of tools including "a dozen small presses for gilding on edges", only bookbinder's tools. The minutes do not say whether these tools were found in a workshop, in a shop or in a room specially assigned to the work of bookbinding. Was Jacques-Antoine therefore only a simple bookbinder at home, giving his works to be gilded outside to one or more practitioners? Should we still suppose that, tired and old, he had retired to his daughter's house to practice only bookbinding, after having discarded his gilder's tools, feeling that he no longer had enough insurance in hand to push the roulettes and filets without shaking? It is possible, but the exercise of these two professions by the same individual has always been so rare, that the first supposition is closer to probabilities". Bulletin de la Société de l'Histoire de Paris, etc., juillet-août 1884, p. 109 |
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It turns out then that Jacques-Antoine Derome was living very modestly and certainly was not rich and famous. Thoinan concludesÉ "Bookbinders, especially those of yesteryear, have, alas! never made a fortune!" Thus we know a few important details, first that he was about 64 years old when he died and that the binding that we are looking at on this page, was bound, perhaps in 1756 or possibly 57, only three years before his death. I suspect that he never decorated any bindings himself, there is so little to prove that he did. He attained his papers as a bookbinder in 1718, why do we not see any binding by him until he was near the end of his life? Here is my theory; Derome le Jeune was the most likely person to have made these elaborate dentelle bindings that he has become famous for. I have shown that there is a unbroken trail of the imprints such as those found on this 1756 Voltaire that flows into the work that is commonly accepted as that of Derome le jeune. I show in Comparative Diagram 7, a good example of this. It seems to me totally reasonable to imagine that Derome le jeune was the creator of all the dentelles, and very unlikely that his father did any of this work in his old age. We should also keep in mind the statement made in the text above; "the exercise of these two professions by the same individual has always been so rare" As for the mosaics mentioned by Thoinan, we know now, due to a thorough comparative study of the imprints found on these mosaics, that they were either the work of Pierre-Paul Dubuisson or his successor Pierre Delorme, and not by J.-A. Derome nor Derome le jeune. |
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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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