| On the previous page we were looking at a post Boyet 1740 binding, the binding shown above may or may not fall into that category as it could have been one of the last bindings that Boyet might have made. When I looked at this binding again today I noticed something for the first time, something that we saw in the 1740 binding, quite a coincidence and well worth showing here. |
| In Comparative Diagram 1, we see that there are a number of shared imprints in these two spine panels, We see the major dentelle element from the previous page, shown again in Comparative Diagram 2 below, it is used again as a side decoration inbetween two corner fleurons, the corner imprints are the same in both examples however a small spiral add-on has been replaced by a floral motif serving the same purpose. We can see that the roulette that frames the spine compartments, composed of three repeating elements is probably the same, while the palette at the bottom of the spine has perhaps been used to decorate the 1740 raised bands, this is hard to show and maybe not exactly the same tool although it would be odd if it wasn't. This palette is really strange, I am tempted to call it the "mars attack" palette, definitely freaky. |
| On another page I have tackled the links between 1728 bindings and these 1732 bindings (click here to see this) at that time I was not aware of this Gumuchian 1732 Columbat, and now by a bit of luck I have solved an old problem as I had a copy of the reproduction but no information... "Binding 92 (shown with the spine included,) is from an Ader Tajan auction catalogue, Drouot, Paris 4 juin 1993. The second example is from a 1927 album of plates that are meant to complement an auction catalogue (that I don't have!). Paris, Giraud-Badin (Lemallier). With only an album of plates, I do not know any of the details about this binding other than it being lot No. 40 of that auction, (Vente du Lundi 21 au Jeudi 24 November 1927 Hotel Drouot Paris)." No. 40 is therefore the binding shown at the top of the page No. 171, both are 1732 Collombats with the arms of Louise-Élisabeth d'Orléans, dite Mademoiselle de Montpensier... she is the daughter of Madame Lucifer and thus it is not surprise that their arms are quite similar, with large tied palm leaves. Now being the daughter of madame Lucifer you can imagine that she was herself quite a problem, not only that but she became the Queen of Spain much to the discontentment of the Spanish. (click here to read her bizarre and shocking story) |
| As Jeanne-Marie Métivier summerized in her important and fascinating paper entitled Luc-Antoine Boyet, relieur de l'Imprimerie royale (1704-1723 which was published in la Revue de la Bibliothèque nationale de France, numéro 12, 2002. It IS possible to identify Boyet tools, because many of them were continuously in use during the whole of his illustrious career. In Comparative Diagram 4 we see more proof of this, with some of his earliest tools still in service in these 1732 spine compartments. |
| Thanks to the exceptional quality of the Gumuchian reproductions, I was able to do the impossible, that is to discover the length of this roulette. Normally the details would never be clear enough to even attempt this, however after looking long and hard at these strips I began to see things that matched, there is no distinct flaw if there was it would have been easy, however you can see for yourself there is very little to assist you, once i had the strips lined up and I was sure that they were matching I did find a strange little helper that is not always so clear. The blue arrows are pointing to something that looks like a little bird, I did not add the dot to the eye that is part of the imprints exactly as they appear, we can always use a little magic helper when it comes to a task of this sort. This is the same roulette that you see framing the spine compartments as well as framing the boards! It is very useful to be able to identify this roulette and it is exactly this roulette that is missing from our 1698 Breviarium. |
| In the next few pages we are going to look at spine panel corner tools, however I want to point out something about these 1732 examples shown in Comparative Diagram 7, if you study these examples closely you will notice that a small spiral has been attached to the corner imprints the precision with which these have been added is quite extraordinary. We are looking at a 1732 binding Boyet would have been around 74 years old and a professional master binder for nearly 50 years and involved in the trade for more than 60. It would therefore be alot to expect that he himself attached those spirals. Not only are the spirals well placed but the tooling itself has been very well executed and remains today crisp and sharp. |
| In Comparative Diagram 8, I have pointed out some of the many excentricities of this fleur-de-lis fleuron, these will make it's identification a relatively simple task. The question is why are there such excentricities? In the spirals that we have pointed out in the spine panels there is a remarkable amount of precision even down to small pointille dots within the small spirals. This suggest that the fleur-de-lis excentricities are deliberate. In the 19th century the precision of gold tooling and guilding tools reached new levels, probably there would be no excentricities in the 19th c fleur-de-lis, however that is part of what renders the 19th century decoration so sterile with it's machine like precision. In the panels shown above we see a wonderful almost magic sort of cartoon quality, entirely human and lacking everything that smacks of robotic machine like precision. The fleur-de-lis looks like it might be an ancient archetype that was once carved in stone, it is perhaps from the middle ages, it has a rustic flavor that would be impossible to imitate. The vague blured out details that were once etched upon it look to have been worn down through long use, perhaps it is even an antique tool that has been passed down from the 16th century. |
| Since discovering this odd fleuron shown in Comparative Diagram 9, I have found quite a few examples used partially in spine compartments inbetween corner tools on the sides, this may be a later tool but is anyway well worth looking for as a sure sign of a Boyet. The complete tool was revealed in a dentelle, however extracting a clean example has prooved difficult. In the dentelle there is, I think a separate imprint placed directly under it, many dentelle examples appear to be tilted so that the left leg is higher than it should be. |
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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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