| I have extracted the decorative arrangement shown above due to the rare or unusual imprints that may or may not be from Dubuissons collection of tools, and in fact may not even have been executed in 1759, if not then they must have been the work of Delorme and possibly date to a few years after. In theory this decoration should have been made before 1762 when the owner of this binding ceased to be among the world of the living. However we might speculate that he ordered this work before his demise and it may not have been completed until some time afterwards. My reasoning for this is partially inspired by the imprint that crowns this arrangement, that I have catalogued provisionally as pd-7-7, or it might be better catalogued as del-7-7, this remains to be discovered. |
| I was fairly certain that I had seen this fleuron before, however it is not in my Dubuisson catalogue, which means that I had not come across it in the many years that I had been collecting his imprints. After searching again through Dubuissons work, I turned to looking through that of Delorme and at last found it again, this is where I had seen it (see this page). |
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On that page I show a reproduction from Heribert Tencherts 2019 publication:
à compartiments
this can also be seen on his web site
on that page he proclaims "For more than 45 years, Heribert Tenschert has been one of the world's leading dealers of illuminated medieval manuscripts and rare books." In his description of this mosaic, he points out the Christies 2015 auction of this same book where he claims that Christie's have made an "incorrect attribution of the bookbinder" we read in the Christie's information "Louis-Marie Michon (No.270) a attribué la reliure ˆ Derome le jeune, mais elle est trs probablement l'oeuvre de Pierre-Paul Dubuisson." Yes this is incorrect, (as we know now that this binding was decorated by Pierre Delorme) but not as incorrect as Tenschert's attribution of it to Derome le jeune... here again is the trap of a so called expert who does not really know what he is talking about but rather depends on the misinformation of Michon. Experts who have not thoroughly studied the imprints of the actual decorative artists in question, are not experts at all and only serve to spread the misinformation of previous "mistaken experts" of the past. However when they pretend to great authority the crime of their incorrect attributions becomes even greater. Giles Barber who did study the imprints and also presented himself as an authority still made a terrible mess of things, basically due to swallowing Michons lies hook line and sinker, as well as his dependance on a deeply flawed system of cataloguing imprints. |
| On my page about this binding I also show the Gumuchgian reproduction of this same binding and give their information where we see that they have indicated a 1765 date for the binding... this I think all revolves around the question of whether or not this binding was made as a sort of homage to Madame Pompadour i.e. after her death 15 April 1764. There are 4 other very similar bindings that were obviously all made in this same period around 1765 I show these on another page (see this) here we can see that all 4 bindings have identical pallets (PAL 28) as well as spine panel corner imprints. This then brings us back to our 1759 dentelle à l'oiseau binding where we find the pd-7-7 and PAL 28 |
| On my page about this binding I also show the Gumuchgian reproduction of this same binding and give their information where we see that they have indicated a 1765 date for the binding... this I think all revolves around the question of whether or not this binding was made as a sort of homage to Madame Pompadour i.e. after her death 15 April 1764. There are 4 other very similar mosaic bindings that were obviously all made in this same period, I show these on another page (see this) here we can see that all 4 bindings have identical pallets (PAL 28) as well as spine panel corner imprints. This then brings us back to our 1759 dentelle à l'oiseau binding where we find the pd-7-7 and PAL 28 |
| I started this diagram after a few failed attempts to show these rare imprints correctly. In this diagram the first example at the top of the rows was extracted from the center of the bottom of the front board and then the following examples were extracted proceeding in a counter-clockwise direction. Similarly with the next series from the back board. All of these imprints are shown in the orientation that they appear on the binding. Various tests were devised to assess the orientation, these indicate that this tool was held in the same position to execute most or all of the imprints. Thus we might assume that the binding was held in the same position during the application of these imprints, and was simply turned over to decorate the opposite board and retain the same orientation. |
| A search through the general collection of Dubuisson bindings for pd-26-4 imprints turned up only one binding, and this turns out to be in fact a binding decorated by Pierre Delorme. I show it above. This decorative binding covers a 1749 publication. Most of the imprints derive from Dubuisson tools however a few of the imprints are not part of the usual Dubuisson collection but are found in bindings that were executed by Delorme in the post Dubuisson period. |
| This evidence suggests that it was possibly Pierre Delorme who actually decorated our1759 binding. There are however some questions as to the date of the execution. It may even be that this binding was executed around 1761 and equally possible that the mosaic series were also made about this time and not in 1765 as I have speculated previously. |
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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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