| Here is the second Derome binding that I found on the University of Glasgow Library flickr page, I have copied their description below, for a fuller reference see the main library entry for this item here. |
|
Provenance:
Louis Jean Gaignat (1697-1768), Secretary to King Louis XV. Gaignat sale, 1769 lot 1689 in Guillaume de Bure, Bibliographie instructive, supplement ... ou catalogue des livres de feu M. L.J. Gaignat, 2 vols (Paris,1769).
William Hunter (1718-1783), physician and anatomist:Ê purchased by Hunter at the Gaignat sale through his agent, Jean-Baptiste Dessain, for 200 livres 1 sou, see Dessain-Hunter correspondence (University of Glasgow Library, MS Gen. 36, f.24v).
University of Glasgow, Hunterian bequest, 1807, Hunterian Museum bookplate on front pastedown, with former shelfmark Au.4.8. Binding: France, 18th-century red morocco with gold-tooled dentelle decoration; ascribed by J.B. Oldham to Jacques Antoine Derome in his Notes on bindings in the Hunterian and general libraries in Glasgow University (University of Glasgow Library, MS Gen. 759, p.3). Sp Coll Hunterian Be.3.20. |
|
It is stated the Jean-Baptiste Dessain, acting as an agent for William Hunter, purchased this binding at the 1769 auction of the affairs of Louis-Jean Gaignat who passed away in 1768. Gaignat, a rich collector who lost very early his wife and daughter, devoted most of his fortune to the acquisition of works of art and books.
Counselor Secretary to the King, Louis XV and Receiver General, bibliophile and art lover. He specified in his will, that the sale of his collections should be done in detail in order to provide the buyers with the pleasure which he himself had had in collecting them. he possessed beside a large collection of works of art, one of the most beautiful libraries of his time (French Gothic, heterodox); his sale occured in April-May of 1769. (click here to see part of his collection). I have searched the Auction Catalogue for this sale and little is said concerning this item. Supplement a la Bibliographie instructive, ou Catalogue des livres du Cabinet de feu M. Louis-Jean Gaignat. Tome 1 / ... dispose et mis en ordre par Guill.-Francois de Bure le jeune,... Publisher (Paris) Publication date: 1769. Shown below is a copy of this that can be found in Gallica (click here to see it) someone has noted all the sale prices in this copy and we can see that this is certainly the correct one with a price of 200 livres 1 sous. The average man in France at this time, earned about 500 - 600 livres a year, today the average salary in metropolitan Paris is $59,000 per year. Lets imagine that this book cost the buyer the equivalant of about 20 thousand dollars. No where is it stated that it has been bound by Derome, but I suppose that if Dessain had it bound after the auction, that bit of information would be shown in the Glascow files, lets assume then that this was one of the last bindings that Gaignat had bound before his untimely death. Perhaps 1767 or 1768. |
| I immediately recognized this binding due to having spent so much time on the British Library binding C11d6 several years ago, here for the first time I see another Derome binding with this same dj-61 imprint. It is a unique and unusual form that you can never forget. Something in me wants to name it the "jestor." |
| The fact that this is the only other binding where we see this imprint, and that there are so many similarities in the decorative arrangements, as well as the roulette, would lead us to suspect that these two bindings are probably contemporaneous both made around 1767. Further to this there is a Derome le jeune etiquette inside the C11d6 binding. This ticket has been described by the British Library staff as being type D 3 in the 1989 Ract-Madoux chronology (click here to see this chronology). To just briefly outline this chronology Ract-Madoux has divided his chronology into a number of periods, the first which spans the time of when ever it was that Derome le jeune first started using these etiquettes say 1760 up to 1770. This period is divided up into 4 groups of 4 etiquettes A, B, C and D. I assume then that etiquette D 3 is at the end of this series, (but cannot be later than 1768). We have now a strong grasp of Derome le jeune bindings for this period 1760 to 1770 and then suddenly I ran into something that could upset my whole idea about the binding that started this whole investigation, the supposed 1775 binding on Madame de Pompadours engraved plates. In that investigation we discovered that there was never a 1775 edition of these plates however her brother the marquis de Marigny, may have given a few copies to friends as late as 1777, therefore a date of 1775 for the Derome Pompadour binding (BnF RES FOL-Z ADLER-33), just on that basis alone makes it a possibility. I must admit that before I started these chronology pages, I was not the expert that I thought I was, now I see this could be more complex than I first imagined. But before I digress let me reveal something that may completely change our way of seeing it. |
| In Comparative Diagram 3, we see something that totally escaped my notice until now. Sometimes we only see what we expect to see. Here I was imagining that these tools never vary, and then suddenly there is something different, the dj-31a on Madame de Pompadour's binding was not the same as all the others! Then I had to madly race around and check them all, this is when I discovered that I do not have any real Derome le jeune bindings after 1770 except Pompadour's, and this put a huge hole in my theory about her binding being early, it has to be older than 1770 because this dj-31-3 pair must appear after 1770. In Comparative Diagram 4, I have assembled a collection of these imprints that span at least 1764 to 1770. The dj-31 pair will probably be found earlier than 1764. Then searching Jubert's Derome bindings it appears that Jubert never used this pair either. If he started working for Derome in 1773 as suggested by the imprints found on his 1773 work, this might further imply that these tools were changed before Jubert arrived in Derome's workshop. |
|
click here to return to the HOME page. click here to see the INDEX of the 2017 pages. see below links to previous work |
| 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. |
| Virtual Bookings, created by L. A. Miller | return to the Home page of VIRTUAL BOOKBINDINGS |