| Now we are going to compare Etat imprints to those of Dubuisson which were made perhaps 15 or more years previously. The black and white imprints do not have the same quality but are anyway remarkable considering that they derive from a 1910 catalogue. Dubuisson had a number of these so called trident tools I have listed them previously as pd-7 the form shown above is only one of about 4 variations, but one that was used extensively around these hand painted, mica covered armories. This model of the Dubuison tridents is remarkable for its thin waist and seemingly damaged point. A close scrutiny of the Etat example shows that it is very similar if not identical to the Dubuisson imprints and in fact derives from the same tool, If it is from Dubuisson's tool kit one might suspect that this work derives from the Dubuisson workshop that continued producing plaque and other binding for decades after Pierre-Paul Dubuisson's untimely death. Below I show a high resolution scan of an Etat binding, the trident imprint is not too hard to find and if you click on this scan you will find it easily near the middle of the enlarged image. Look closely at the enlarged scan, when you have this kind of detail, comparative research is able to make giant steps in the realm of imprint identification. |
| Below I show a binding that was sold at the 1930 Rahir auction for the equivalent of about 70 thousand dollars of todays dollars, this amount of money then was probably an amazing amount of money for a binding, they were not paying that for the Almanach, perhaps the fact that it was decorated with the Arms of the then young King of the Two Sicilies, Ferdinand I, had some influence on the price, either way, this amount of money was only about half of what was paid for a binding by Jubert in 1885, (according to Gruel pg 115), which was another mosaic binding and was signed by Jubert so they were not thinking they were buying a Derome! This is interesting to think about, Jubert's signed binding broke auction records in 1885 and today no one seems to have heard of him, why? I think it maybe because the bindings of Jubert has been confounded with the those of Derome. However I am digressing here, the binding below as I said sold for high price and mysteriously resurfaced in a 2016 Librairie Camille Sourget auction catalogue |
| In Comparative Diagram I show the two 1772 Almanach Royal with identical arms, we are told that these two bindings are one and the same however for them to be the same the Sourget example must have been repaired with miraculous precision. Indeed the two binding present a sort of mystery but that is not the subject of this page. There appears on these bindings, Etat imprints, really I am tempted to call them products deriving from the Dubuisson workshop, because we know that the Dubuisson workshop continued to specialize in Almanach bindings for at least another decade if not 2 and the fact that there are within the Etat imprints a number of imprints from Dubuisson's tools. However because of Michon insisting that these bindings were produced by the Deromes, the matter has become very confused. Here however we are going to put an end to the Derome myth. This same 1772 Almanach binding was also reproduced by G. Withney Hoff. This reproduction is better than most and allows us to compare imprints (shown below - Item 416). In Comparative Diagram 3 I show an imprint from the 1772 Almanach compared with an Etat imprint which appears to be the same. |
| In Comparative Diagram 4, we see another imprint match from the 1772 Almanachs and an Etat imprint which almost certainly has been produced by the same tool. Now that we have linked these bindings with the Etat bindings this will take us on an amazing journey of discovery. |
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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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