| I want to add to these pages some of the very little that is known about the French 18th century, Decorative Bookbinder, Louis Douceur. First we start with the information given by the Bibliotheque nationale de France in there online information about various binders (click here to see this page). I show this below as well as an approximate translation. |
| Louis Douceur, probably the son of bookbinder François Douceur, recieved his papers as a Master of bookbinding on October 14, 1721 and exercised community guard duties from September 11, 1737 to June 10, 1739. He was known for making bindings with dentelle decorations some of which contain his signature ticket, and especially well known for those executed on the luxury copies of the Fables of La Fontaine published from 1755 to 1759, illustrated according to the drawings of Jean-Baptiste Oudry, for which Douceur had special tools made with animal motifs (more than thirty tools for eight identified bindings); only two of these bear his signature ticket, one of which is described below. Louis Douceur also had special tools engraved to adorn the bindings of luxurious copies of the Pastoral Amours of Daphnis and Chloé de Longus (1745) (three lambs) and the Praise of Folly from Erasmus (1751) (madman's head ). The inventory of bindings from his workshop indicates that Louis Douceur had a very large stock of guilding tools and that he counted Madame de Pompadour among his clients. He also executed some bindings with mosaic decoration. He retired in 1766 in favor of his son-in-law Nicolas II Le Tellier. |
| We find in the BnF information that they have given Douceur's approximate birth date as being within the 18th century, while stating that he recieved his papers as a full fledged binder on October 14, 1721. I once thought that the apprenticship for becomming a binder was a matter of several years, therefore it is doubtful that the Louis Douceur they are referring to could have been born within the 18th century. Further more they give the death of Louis Douceur as being in 1769 when he would have been most certainly more than 70 years of age. There are a number of things that I question in all this, the first being that this binder who recieved his papers in 1721 and is said to be Louis Douceur appears to have never made a dentelle binding of any significance before 1739 i.e. 18 years after he became a professional in the trade. We know that Douceur was at the peak of his production and abilities around 1754, this is then some 33 years after he started in this career and was probably between 56 and 58 years old when he was at he is peak? Here we touch upon some unknowns when it comes to the ability of someone doing this kind of work that requires an extreme amount of eye-hand coordination that you have been doing in adverse conditions of poor lighting and no power tools for decades. Would the eyes become fatigued? Would the hands become unsteady? Would the nerves be befrayed by the constant pressure? Here is what you must remember, when you make a mistake on a rare piece of leather that has already been covered with a costly gold dentelle, the mistake cannot be erased, the mistake will be obvious for all to see a correction is also all to obvious... there can be no mistakes!, the hand must be steady and sure, and the mind concentrated, the vision clear and focused... can a person muster all this for 40 years and be then at his peak? And if this is the case then this Master of the Art must be recognized as one of the greatest binders of the 18th century and surely Louis Douceur was this, one of the top 10 French binders of the century. The BnF can only show us 2 Douceur bindings. there are 6 but 5 are identical, the purpose of this must make one wonder when we consider the wide range and diversity of Douceur's bindings... only a few selected bindings are shown below. (if you dare, click here for this in a full sized image 18.3 Mb) |
| The Bnf data for Louis Douceur includes a reference to Barber (Barber, Giles. The James A. de Rothschild Bequest at Waddesdon Manor : Catalogue of Printed Books and Bookbindings. Waddesdon Manor: The Rothschild Foundation, 2013 Barber) 2013 notamment t. I, p. 275-278 et 382-383 (fers spéciaux pour les Fables ; 27 dénombrés). Below I show part of page 275 which gives us a better translation of the BnF information. |
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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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