| After the last page I decided to check the Davis562 that we have looked previous on another page (click here to see it). I wondered if it was perhaps an older binding by Douceur and that the British Library date of publication possibly incorrect, so I searched with google for Agenda des Auteurs on Calpin litteraire; La Trentaine de Cithere Au Parnasse hoping to find another copy with the date of publication, but instead discovered in a 1913 catalogue an amazing heliogravure of the Davis562 example with of course the correct info as given by the British Library of 1755 (click here to see this 1913 catalogue at archive.org). I show this above, there are some real treasures in this catalogue by Eugène von Wassermann: Les livres composant le cabinet de M. Eugène v. W***. Now this was exciting because the catalogue plate showed that there is a doublure in this binding and also shows the spine which was not shown in the original British Library photo. This explains then, the images shown above and below. |
| After this discovery I was quick to write to the British Library asking if I might have a copy of the doublure to include with my 2019 page on this binding which they were kind enough to reference in the Davis562 information. This is an important discovery that reveals yet more Douceur tools, proving that this binding was indeed made by Louis Douceur and not by the so called 'Atelier a la Tulipe' as was the assumption of M M Foot. |
| In Comparative Diagram 1, we compare the 1913 Wassermann example with a new scan from the British Library (note one d-67 bird walking the wrong way). One cannot help but marvel at the quality of the 1913 reproduction, made by les établissements Jean Malvaux à Bruxelles. Shocking to think that the catalogue reproductions of 1913 were far superior to anything you see printed today. |
| In Comparative Diagram 2, I have assembled and catalogued the imprints from the front cover of Davis562 this work is from last year, and in Comparative Diagram 3, I have assembled the all the doublure imprints except for those that were on the cover. I show the scanned versons as well as the 1913 versions that were in some cases superior. |
| In Comparative Diagram 4, we attack imprint 94 (provisional catalogue number) you have to do a double take when you see something like this on a binding that was made in the middle of the 18th century, here is a tool that was popular over one hundred years earlier. I am not sure if the Maitre doreur was the first one to make use of such a tool, however Florimond Badier was using an identical tool a decade or two later. When I first encountered this sort of imprint and wanted to compare them, I devised a simple method of replacing the pointille segments with beads of a uniform size, this system, works quite well, it gives you an accurate idea of how many segments there are, and to compare them with other examples was a simple matter of counting the beads. The 1913 reproductions are however no match for high resolution scanners where very fine details appear, this is the case with this imprint d-94, the scanned examples reveal the segmentes even though the imprint is otherwise quite messy. |
| In Comparative Diagram 5, we compare Douceur's example d-94 with Maitre doreur and Badier examples, these imprints are all so similar that overlays will not be helpful, however if you look at these diagrams long enough you will notice certain small differences such as the center rings. The Douceur example is by far the larger with the Badier ring is the smallest. Another more obvious difference is the fact that the Maitre doreur example is very symetrical where as the Douceur example is not, the vertical loops are larger than the horizontal loups. The crowning bead at the top of the stem should actually be a ring, and does not appear to be in the Douceur example but that maybe just the result of being filled with an excess of gold. This tool is going to help us if Douceur uses it again. |
| Finally in Comparative 6, we see a tool that was used in the inside of the dentelle as a corner tool in 1745 (shown on the previous page) and now in 1755 used in the centerpiece decoration of the doubleur, Louis Douceur imprint d-6-2. This is another nail in the coffin of the M M Foot 'Atelier a la Tulipe' theory, no doubt yet another giant error due to the mess created by Louis-Marie Michon's book Les reliures mosaïquées du XVIIIe siècle. |
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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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