| It is getting hard to keep track of more than 100 Louis Douceur imprints, and a new catalogue long overdue, however I show in Comparative Diagram 1, the recent additions along with a few (not many) older specimens. Initially I wanted to concentrate on the corner motif in as much as we see that binders often use repeatedly the same corner tool even over long periods, these can be seen as a sort of signature and are therefore more import as diagnostic tools. Douceur however has tricked us here using a corner tool that we have not seen before, except on these two Semaine Saintes. |
| When I first saw these corner imprints shown in Comparative Diagram 2, I thought that the small imprint in the center was part of the tool, however high resolution scans show that it varies in position and therefore cannot be part of imprint d-10-4 and was catalogued afterwards as d-96. Its actually quite a bold move to insert this fleuron in the center of d-10-4, as any misstep will be more noticible here than one in the middle of the dentelle. Overall there seems to be a very accurate and pleasing placement of the imprints. |
| Now we come again to the tricky problem of how such an imprint should be oriented. Barber has cataloged a number of imprints of this sort and if we want to stay awake at night thinking about just why he chose to show these imprints one way and a very similar looking inprint just the opposite... you better get the milk and crackers ready. |
| In Comparative Diagram 4, I have assembled a selection of Douceur corner imprints, when I discover that Barber has shown one of these imprints in his catalogue then I use the Barber codification for these Douceur imprints. He never states specifically that these are imprints that derive from the tools of Louis Douceur, and quite oddly when he has decided to show us an actual binding (not often) as being "ascribed" by him to Louis Douceur, the binding shown was not made by Douceur (click here to see this mystery). The imprints that I have catalogued with the prefix of 10, I have not shown in the Barber orientation for imprints of this sort, however the d-11 imprints are shown with a Barber orientation... or are they? |
| In Comparative Diagram 5, I show Barbers Type Model DCR 9. compared with the same imprint found on Rahir's 923 binding, this we can prove, with a great deal of certainty, as being a binding decorated by Louis Douceur, and therefor I am relatively certain that the binding mentioned by Barber, W.Cat. 239. where this imprint has been found will also be a binding by Douceur. |
| In Comparative Diagram 6, we see what appears to be two very similar imprints, probably these are from the same tool, however here is the limitation of Barber's book with low resolution diagrams and poor type specimens... if this turns out to be the same imprint we must lament the missing details from Barbers example. In Comparative Diagram 7, shown below I have placed the Henault imprint over the Barber DCR 16, and reduced the transparency to 50% as well as inverting the white to black. Thus we see the white DCR 16 under the black outline of the Henault imprint, this is a very convincing exercise. |
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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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