The image quality is an important factor in what we are going to explore, comparing this Jubert binding with those shown in Comparative Diagram 2. What I want to do here is to try to find out when these bindings were actually made. The 1772 SALUSTIO could theoretically, have been bound and decorated sometime near the publication date. However certain imprints found in this dentelle lead me to think that it could have been made/decorated somewhat later. To test this theory we are going to compare this decoration with that of two other important bindings by Jubert found in the BnF. I need to firstly point out that these two bindings are probably some of the most important works that Jubert ever had to decorate. These rare books come from the 1784 sale of the library of the famed Bibliophile le duc de la Vallire. so much could be said about Vallire…
Louis César de La Baume Le Blanc, duc de Vaujours, duc de La Vallire (9 October 1708 Ð 16 November 1780),
Louis César was one of the greatest bibliophiles of his time. With the assistance of his librarian, the abbé Rive, he bought entire libraries and sold whatever he already had. His great library was eventually sold in three stages, first in 1767; then in 1783 and again in 1788. Part of the famous collection was acquired by the comte d'Artois, brother of Louis XVI and future king of France. That part of the library was incorporated into the Bibliothque de l'Arsenal in Paris.
There is something important to consider here, that this most famous book collector chose Jubert for this all important task, for these volumes that would be the stars of the collection. We do not know whether Vallire first turned this work over to Derome who then paid Jubert to do it. What we see here is Jubert's own tools, not the mixture of Derome and Jubert tools. By this time Jubert had already been working on large dentelles for Derome for years, and we might guess that Vallire knew that Jubert would be doing this work. All this says what? That Jubert must have been considered as the most capable and skilled of all the artists available. Why would Vallire have paid for anything less?
The experts of the BnF have estimated that these nearly identical bindings were made around 1780. We have been looking at numerous Jubert bindings on these pages, many have been executed around this same date… yet nowhere do we see the roulette found on all three of the bindings considered here. This seems rather odd and it is somewhat mysterious considering that Piere-Paul Dubuisson was employing a nearly identical roulette at the very beginning of his career possibly as early as 1743 or more likely to be after 1746 when he attained his papers as a binder. Then years later Pierre Delorme employed this same Dubuisson roulette to decorate Almanachs. It can be seen on the Almanach Royal of 1769 right through to 1774 (-69)(-73)(-74). It seems likely that Jubert might have seen some of these almanachs from around this period and had a copy of the roulette made, or perhaps bought this same style roulette from a local toolmaker.
There are some other facts that need to be considered, one is that Vallire died on the 16th of November, 1780 at the age of 72. I did not find any cause of death in my searches but at 72 I suspect it might have been of some normal cause like old age. The question is then when were these bindings decorated? If Vallire had this done in the last year of his life it could be 1780, however earlier is also a possibility.
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