| Earlier this year, I was lamenting the fact that the Bibliotheque nationale de France did not show a representative Derome dentelle binding, even though they list a number of binding that they attribute to him, the dentelles are not those of Derome, (see these pages) however quite by chance I discovered one just recently. While working on some new Douceur pages, I went back to see a mosaic dentelle by Douceur that I had documented earlier this year (see this page). This binding by Douceur covers Suite d'estampes gravees par Madame la marquise de Pompadour d'apres les pierres gravees de Guay, graveur du roy. Below is the text that accompanies this binding in the Walters Art Museum, (see this page). |
| "Madame de Pompadour, the favorite mistress of King Louis XV (1710-1774), is best remembered as an enthusiastic patron of France's leading artists and intellectuals. She was also a thinker and artist in her own right. Around 1755 Pompadour orchestrated and helped execute a highly sophisticated project: the Suite of Prints Engraved by Madame de Pompadour after the Carved Gems of Jacques Guay. While Pompadour's involvement with the arts has been portrayed as frivolous, the Suite of Prints reveals the complexity of her interest, especially in the fluid relationships between different visual media: the project translated carved gems into drawings, and drawings into etchings and engravings. Each print in Madame de Pompadour's Suite results from the convergence of multiple artists and artistic processes. First, Jacques Guay carved an image onto a gemstone. Next, an artist, usually Franois Boucher or Joseph-Marie Vien created a drawing of Guay's carved gem. Pompadour herself then etched the drawing onto a metal plate, and a professional printmaker reinforced her etched lines with an engraving tool called a burin. Finally, an impression of the plate was made on paper to yield the finished print. Madame de Pompadour's ambitious printmaking project reflects the 18th-century mania for collecting ancient and modern carved gems. Pompadour gave Jacques Guay workspace in her residence at Versailles, commissioned him to carve dozens of cameos and intaglios. Pompadour's prints are important records of Guay's gems, as much of his work is lost, and the carved gems that do survive are often small and luminous, making it difficult to appreciate their designs. The prints enlarge the gems and enhance their motifs and imagery. Beneath an enlargement of each gem's design, diagrams indicate the type of stone and its actual size. But Pompadour's goal was not simply to create precise records of the gems. Her printed images often re-interpret the carvings on the stones, taking advantage of stylistic individuality and the tonal possibilities of the print medium to transform them into new works of art. In the move from three to two dimensions, the images from the gems are brought to life in innovative ways. Pompadour issued very few copies of the Suite, probably no more than 20, meant to circulate only to friends and acquaintances. By the late 19th century, only one example of the original edition was known to survive, but it subsequently disappeared from the historical record. New research has reestablished its significance and revealed that it was purchased in 1895 by Henry Walters." |
| Thinking that it might be interesting to see this work by Madame de Pompadour, I did a quick search and discovered that you can see the entire work online with the BnF Gallica. To my surprise Madame Pompadours collection of engravings is found in a very large dentelle binding by Derome le jeune! Voila! The BnF does have a Derome dentelle binding that you can explore with the zoom of Gallica, I show it reproduced above at the top of this page. In Comparative Diagram 1, we see that the famous bird tool of Derome (copied from Dubuission) that can be seen in this binding, is in fact a real one. However this discovery of a Derome dentelle binding raised a few questions, the first being that the BnF information for this collection of Pompadour's engraving states that they were published in 1775 while the Walters binding by Douceur is dated to 1755. It would seem that the Walters collection is one of the original issued by Madame de Pompadour, around 1755, also it contains some hand written tables of content that are not seen in the BnF example. |
| I wanted to know if this Derome le jeune binding could have been made in 1775. If we start with Seymour de Ricci's # 38, a signed binding by Derome le jeune, we see in the notes and information about this binding, that the signature ticket is possibly an early one, another like it, has been found on a 1761 publication. Also in this binding we can see that Derome has used some of his fathers tools, including the famous signature fleuron that has been used as the centrepiece for the spine compartments. These details seem to indicate that #38 is an early Derome le jeune binding that could have been made in 1761. However looking at Comparative Diagram 3 we see that these two bindings share many tools and design features in common. Now if the BnF copy of Madame de Pompadour's engravings was published in 1775 then Derome's binding must be from that date, to me, this seems doubtful. Perhaps the BnF example is not a 1775 edition of the Pompadour engravings? Madame de Pompadour died an unfortunate early death in 1764, so we are going to have to dig to find out. |
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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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