| The reproduction the binding shown above is found in a 2008 LIBRAIRIE SOURGET - MANUSCRITS ET LIVRES PRECIEUX - CATALOGUE N° XXXVII, page 320-321, lot 121. I had of course seen a lot of bindings with these rather peculiar arms of 9 squares joined together, the bindings are not all by Boyet, however here we have an indicator to help us, our familar scarecrow imprint. |
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Below I show another similar example that is found on the web site of the auction house La Gazette Drouot, from the 12th November 2015 sale: Collection Michel Wittock Sixième partie (click here to see it). I have used Google to translate the auction information, which is imperfect however the main points are there. Jeanne-Baptiste of Albert de Luynes, Countess of Verrue (1676-1763) has an amazing history that you can read on Wikipedia "...after an education at the prestigious Abbey of Port-Royal in Paris, she was married to Joseph Ignace Scaglia, Count of Verrua in between 23 August and 25 August 1683. She was just thirteen and a half years old at the time of her marriage. Her husband was a colonel de dragons and a prominent Piedmontese diplomat working for the Duke of Savoy." She went on to become rich and famous as you can see in the information below. All the men who met her fell under her spell, even the most powerful worshiped the ground she walked on. I seached all day to try to find a good painting of her, however there seems to be nothing larger than a postage stamp. When a woman wields such power over men you wished at least to have a glimpse of her. |
| "The Clytie, or the romantic of the court. Paris, Guillaume Loyson, 1640. In-8 (160 x 104 mm), black morocco, triple golden filet, armorial plate in the center surmounted by the mention Meudon, back adorned with alternating pieces of arms, 9 squares and crowned lions, and twigs laurel with small tools, inlaid red morocco title, ornate edges, inner roulette, gilded and marbled edges (Binding of the early eighteenth century). Second edition with continuous pagination, adorned with a beautiful title-frontispice drawn and engraved intaglio by Crispin de Passe. A prolific novelist and playwright, Puget de La Serre (1594-1665) wrote more than one hundred works that earned him the title of historiographer of France. From the party of the queen-mother, whom he followed in exile to Brussels in 1627, he was, on his return to France, pensioned by Richelieu and appointed librarian of Gaston d'Orleans and chaplain to his daughter, the Grande Mademoiselle. He is the author of Panegyrics of the famous men and Thomas Morus, the first tragedy in French prose, in 1641. The first edition of La Clytie was published in 1630. Beautiful copy luxuriously bound in black morocco with armorial stamps and arms of the Countess de Verrue, from her country library in Meudon. Jeanne-Baptiste of Albert de Luynes, Countess of Verrue (1676-1763) was one of the greatest bibliophiles of her time. She owned a library in Paris and another in Meudon, her country residence, from which this book comes, Purchased and bound in Paris with a decorative binding bearing her arms before being transported to the campaign library and embelished on this occasion with the supralibris of Meudon. In 1737, at the time of the sale of her books, the copy was presented under No. 240 of the inventory, p. 99 of the catalog (which erroneously indicates two volumes). Libraries of Dr. Armand Ripault (ex libris, sale I in Paris, January 24, 1924, lot 231) and Raoul-Édouard Cartier (ex-libris, sale in Paris, May 15, 1974, lot 83). Spine slightly faded, the back board formerly restored (in the eighteenth century) pale wetness at the head of the volume and some scattered rednesses, small worm work in the margin of pp. 275-357. Quentin Bauchart I, 409-429. Exhibitions: Musea Nostra, p. 49 - A life, a collection" |
| The next binding from the collection of la Comtesse is found in a Sotheby's 2012 online auction catalogue (click here to see it). Sotheby's provide us with an amazing high resolution reproduction of this binding, although they do not mention Boyet in their information. Here the image is so good that we can identify the corner tools which happens to be our familiar corner 2. |
| Comparative Diagram 3, we see that the corner tools are Type 2, these are common Boyet tools that we have now found on several Boyet bindings (see Comparative Diagram 4), notice also the decoration on the raised spines, this appears to be identical and is without satelllite points indicating that is probably palette III. |
| In Comparative Diagram 6, we get to see at last, this new palette with fairly good definition for once, however we see something odd happening here... a lot of overlapping. |
| I have extracted these palette examples so that we can see what is going on here, there can only be one explanation and that is that this palette is very short and or difficult to overlap. I suppose a bad overlap is better than a gap in the middle like a missing tooth. I have attempted to reconstruct this palette in Comparative Diagram 8 and catalogued it as palette XXIII. |
| I must confess that the painting of La Comtesse shown above is not really her, only my idea of what it must have been like to have been in her shoes with the most powerful, wealthy, influential man and future King, totally enamoured and waiting at her beck and call. This was in the last decade of the 17th century, when grandeur was reaching its apogee, Andrea Pozzo was working on his masterpiece, the illusory perspectives in frescoes of the dome, the apse and the ceiling of Rome's Jesuit church of Sant'Ignazio. She, the comtesse de Verrue, held the world in her hands. In many ways her story is similar to that of madame Pompadour. Both women weilded incredible power and influence, became rich, and built huge libraries filled with books that they actually read. (click here to see more about her books) |
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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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