| This sumptuous Jubert binding was up for auction on eBay in May of 2023. It is rare to find a Jubert on eBay let alone one that is appears to be in 'like new' condition such as this one. At first sight I thought that the decoration of the spine was the work of Gosselin, it looked very familiar. |
| In Comparative Diagram 1, we see the spine of Gosselin's signed 1772 binding (see this) compared with the 1774 Jubert spine. |
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In Comparative Diagram 2, I have reproduced the Gosselin and Jubert imprints at the same scale. The green letters 'a' and 'b' are pointing out a pair of Gosselin imprints that he often used in the corners of spine panel, exactly as Jubert has employed them shown as the blue letters 'a' and 'b'. Now there is no doubt that this is flagrant copying by Jubert who was perhaps only at the beginning of his career. The first thing to remember is that Derome le jeune employed both Gosselin and Jubert as well as Delorme to decorate bindings that he later signed, possibly from as early as 1768 (see this)(and this). In Barber's 2013 publication Printed Books and Bookbindings Volume II, page 912, and colored plate page 303, he shows binding W.Cat.454 that has a Derome ticket inside. Derome's ticket was evidence enough for Barber to pronounce that this binding and all the tools decorating it belonged to Derome le jeune, however the decoration of this binding was executed entirely with Gosselin tools. In Barber's notes he estimates that this binding was executed in 1785 and further mentions (end-leaves watermarked 1778) i.e. the book was bound with old end-leaves or…? anyway it is proof that Gosselin was decorating bindings for Derome as late as 1778. A the same time Jubert was also decorating Derome's bindings with large dentelles (see this). What disturbs me most is that Derome never decorated a vast number of wonderful dentelles that are now attributed to him, Jubert certainly produced many… was he a better artist than Derome le jeune? Most certainly I would say, so who should be more famous? As of yet the Bibliothèque nationale de France have still never even heard of Jean-Pierre Jubert, even though I have notified them about this scandalous omission on their part. Below I show a large Jubert dentelle that can be see online at the Bibliothèque nationale de France (see this), and below this is an enlargement of the Derome ticket that is found in this binding. |
| The BnF do not recognize this as being decorated by Jubert (who they never heard of) and attribute this work to Derome le jeune. We can see however in the gold tooling of this binding some of the same imprints that are found on the 1774 Jubert at the top of this page. It may be that Derome decorated the spine of this binding, as I mentioned on a 2017 page (see this), now in retrospect I question this, due to the fact that the 'caged bird' that decorates the spine is not the usual Derome tool of this typeŠ I will be very interesting to prove this one way or another, perhaps this 'caged bird' is actually a Jubert tool. |
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In Comparative Diagram 3, I show a Jubert imprint that I have previously catalogued as jj-8. This is one of Jubert's favorite tools, found in most of his dentelle decoration, a sort of signature tool, when you find it you are assured that you are looking at a Jubert. In this diagram I had to 'correct' somewhat the eBay photo which suffers perspective distortion, however there are enough matching details to assure us that this is indeed the same imprint. On the next page I am going to show you another highly interesting Jubert binding! |
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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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