| The binding shown above is found in Sotheby's 2015 auction catalogue (click here to see it). We are going to look at all the gold tooled imprints on this important early Boyet binding. Someone recently asked me how I can be so sure that certain bindings were made by Boyet, the answer is, by examining every detail very carefully. This binding for example reveals what appears to be an early Boyet imprint. I show it enlarged below wedged between two other palettes, it is a simple palette consisting of circles diamonds and squares separated by pierced dots. |
| The large dentelle that frames the boards is known as "dentelle du Louvre" and has been studied by Jeanne-Marie Métivier who illustrates a number of examples in her paper entitled , ''La reliure à la Bibliothèque du roi de 1672 à 1786'', dans Mélanges autour de l'histoire des livres imprimés et périodiques, sous la direction Bruno Blasselle et Laurent Portes, Paris, 1998, p. 139, Figure 4.) Her example 2 in Figure 4 seemed the right size and the right shape, however when I tried to measure the length of her example compared with this 1687 example there seemed to be a problem. I have detailed this in Comparative Diagram 1. When the imprints did not match up I saw that the leaves were separated in the Metivier example and thought that these must be two different tools, however they looked so close I thought there must be some explanation. You have to know that these dentelles are constructed from a single tool that is used repeatedly linking one after the other, now it dawned on me that maybe in this 1687 example the artist decided to link the imprints closer together, in fact to slightly overlap them, when I cut and pasted the links in this way with reversed overlap imagery I managed to get things to fit together, and thus learned something important when it comes to identifying dentelles du louvre. |
| The next thing I wanted to check was the roulette that frames the dentelle du louvre, I have already catalogued a number of Boyet's roulettes of this type on another page (click here to see it) so the first thing to do was to try to compare those with this one. This 1687 roulette did not match any in my catalogue so I had to try to measure its length. In Comparative Diagram 2, you see what is involved in this process. At first you must search for flaws or defects or annomalies that can be easily identified, then try to find where they repeat if they do. |
| In Comparative Diagram 3, I have added this new roulette C-6 to the collection, you might think that this is a C-2 however the major difference apart from size is the fact that the muscular arms of the flowers do not ever show a second muscle bulge where as C-2 arms occasionally have two bulges. |
| In Comparative Diagram 4 we see partial evidence of a palette, not enough really to say for sure if this is one that Isabelle de Conihout & Pascal Ract-Madoux have already catalogued. Below I show an enlargement of the giant fleur-de-lis that is found on the boards, if we could get a really high definition enlargement of this fleuron we would be shocked to discover that the primeval dragons and mythological demons that are dancing on its surface are not that at all but rather an ancient prehistoric script. |
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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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