| To start this page which is about a Boyet binding I recently found on eBay, I think its best that I show first a similar binding by Boyet (shown above). This I found in my old stock of Boyet images and I am not sure where exactly the photo comes from but in the interest of science I will present it here. Perhaps some reader will recognize it and be kind enough to send me the details. We can be sure it is a Boyet by a number of things but perhaps the most convincing detail is the unusual palette found at the base of the spine. This Boyet palette has been classified as Type VI in the 2002 Paris publication by Isabelle de Conihout & Pascal Ract-Madoux, Reliures françaises du XVIIe siècle. In this publication the authors present a number of bindings which they attribute to Boyet and on page 110 they have catalogued some of the tools commonly found on the bindings presented. |
| In Comparative Diagram 1, I show the Type VI palette model from their book as well as another binding example. This unusual palette is easy to recognize simply because it is so different from every other in this period or in any period for that matter. Now we can compare this proven Boyet binding to the ebay example (shown below). |
| I show here the back board of this binding, exactly as it was presented by the seller on his eBay page. The detail is crisp and sharp, the fine points of the dentelle clearly visible as well as a bonus of an unusual Boyet bouquet that is again easy to recognize simply by its unusual form and combination of tools. When I first saw this bouquet in one of Esmerians photos, I thought it was some kind of fish or beast, and only now do realize that it is a kind of bouquet that became very popular several decades later. |
| Now when we come to comparing the dentelles I was surprised to find a Padeloup dentelle that either uses very similar tools or maybe even the same tools. Padeloup was a fanatic for precision tooling, his work on this kind of dentelle was often very precise however in this example that is from a 1726 signed Padeloup binding (shown on this page) does not compare in accuracy to that of Boyet. To make this kind of dentelle perfectly you have to be able to not only lay down a precise pattern but you have to make the pattern fit into a limited space, this means juggling the pattern a bit, overlapping in small amounts, but here Padeloup fails completely he doesn't manage to accomplish what Boyet has done, a nearly perfect placement of each imprint. Now we ask ourselves is this ebay binding a real Boyet? Of course it must be, only Boyet could achieve this perfection with these tools. On another page I show an intricate dentelle by Padeloup that was perhaps made around 1715, here is fantastic accuracy, while the lack of accuracy shown in the 1726 dentelle might suggest a decline in Padeloup's ability to do such precise work, this question needs more research as well as determining whether Padeloup was borrowing Boyet's tools. When I get this ebay Boyet under my microscope perhaps we will get an answer. |
| Another huge plus in our eBay Boyet is this Brokatpapier, a quick search for this, keeps bringing me back to Georg Christoph Stoy, but here I am only guessing, on the next page we will look at ways of researching this decorative paper. |
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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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