| The reproduction shown above is from Librairie Sourget Manuscrits et Livres Précieux 1999 catalogue N°XIX item 214 page 290, this large sumptous binding looks entirely like a binding decorated by Louis Douceur... especially the spiderweb imprint in corners looking very much like a similar imprint (d-93) in the Davis562 doublure. After carefully resizing the scan of this binding I extracted these imprints to make Comparative Diagram 1. |
| The results of Comparative Diagram 1, could be compared to the Great Disappointment... "The Great Disappointment in the Millerite movement was the reaction that followed Baptist preacher William Miller's proclamations that Jesus Christ would return to the Earth by 1844." what he was predicting actually was tantamount to the end of the world and it never happened... and can you believe that the people were disappointed when it never happened... n'importe quoi ! So then I was forced to do yet more comparative diagrams. |
| I wanted to try the DCT 53 imprint since we have looked at it on page 10, and we see the result in Comparative Diagram 2. It is interesting to see that this is not the Douceur imprint nor is it the same as another imitation of this imprint. Still one might argue that Douceur could have had more than one of these tools so we proceed to the next test. |
| In Comparative Diagram 3 we compare the 114 Rabelais spine panel centerpiece imprint with Louis Douceur's signature imprint d-3 (click here to see Douceur spine panel examples). Here is where my feathers start to get ruffled, look at this, a deliberate attempt to copy and mislead people into thinking that this is a binding by Douceur, it is one thing to copy a style it is another to copy exactly the other's signature tool! |
| In Comparative Diagram 4, we compare a 114 Rabelais imprint with the Douceur imprint d-43a-3 from the BnF binding RES P-YF-243 that we looked at on page 8, this it seems, is a hard imprint to copy a few have tried and none have achieved a convincing copy of this extravagent motif or its mirror double d-43b-3. |
| In our final test diagram Comparative Diagram 5, we compare Giles Barber's Bulbous Vase example BV 2 with a similer sized example from the 114 Rabelais binding. These imprints are very similar but not identical, one can easily imagine that one is a copy of the other. The interest here is that Barber states that this imprint is found on a 1749 Henault, I am tempted to guess that this is a Doucer binding (click here to see another Douceur BV 2, Henault example) see also Barber's page 277, W.Cat 255 in Barber's List G, of Douceur bindings. |
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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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