logo-xls

French Decorative Bookbinding - Eighteenth Century

Luc-Antoine Boyet


click to enlarge


(click on this image to see an enlargement)


BREVIARIUM FRATRUM B.V. MARIÆ DE MONTE CARMELI année 1698


When I saw this binding on eBay I was thinking that it must be a binding by Boyet even though not really typical of his work I thought I saw some of his regular tools in the dentelle and promised myself to win it at all costs. Actually it did not attract any attention and I was the only person to bid, as the bids started quite high, this discourages bidders. The sellers photos were good enough to convince me that this was a Boyet, however the book itself looked well read and used, this was not a book that spent its entire life in a quiet part of the library, this was a book that served its purpose. This is another reason why it did not attract much attention on eBay, Breviarium are a dime a dozen, but this one, if it came from Boyet's workshop would be a rare find.



click to enlarge


As soon as this book arrived I was quick to take some photos of the unusual palette that i could only just make out in the eBay photos I thought it must be the one that Jeanne-Marie Métivier illustrated in her 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. Shown below it is the bird palette at the top of the illustration.


metivier


Imprints from the tools of Luc-Antoine Boyet after Jeanne-Marie Métivier, 2002.


The shock was that this was not the same as Metivier's illustration and I went into a kind of denial, but remembered that there was another place where she showed actual phototgraphs of the Boyet spines that she was working with. I show it below in Comparative Diagram 1, these are Metiviers photos that I have assembled here for comparative purposes.




click to enlarge


(click on this image to see an enlargement)


Comparative Diagram 1 - Boyet spine details after Jeanne-Marie Métivier, 2002.


In Comparative Diagram 1, we can see that spine example (C) is the source of Metivier's bird palette however example (D) also has what looks to be a smaller bird palette. (click on this diagram to see an enlargement)


click to enlarge


(click on this image to see an enlargement)


Comparative Diagram 2 - Boyet spine (D) vs 1698 eBay Breviarium


In Comparative Diagram 2 we breath a big sigh of relief, after finding that these bird palettes do match, and we see also Boyet roulette/palette C-5 is probably another match (click here to see Boyet type C roulettes). While we are here we may as well look at another Metivier tool, it is the roulette at the bottom of her diagram, if you look at the scan below of our 1698 binding you will notice that the outermost roulette is probably the same that she has illustrated. In Comparative Diagram 3, we explore this further.


click to enlarge


(click on this image to see an enlargement)


click to enlarge


(click on this image to see an enlargement)


Comparative Diagram 3 - Metivier Boyet roulette vs 1698 eBay Breviarium examples


In Comparative Diagram 3, I have placed Metivier's boyet roulette example in the midst of samples of the outer roulette of the 1698 Brevarium. When I was looking at Metivier's diagram I noticed what might be considered a sort of flaw, I have marked it with a green dot, and it just so happens that the flower bud that is placed between these floral elements, appears to be not well centered on its mid point stem, a careful search through all the these floral elements indicates that this off centerness only occurs with this bud it is indicated by the blue lines. While you might not agree with this analysis there is another thing that occures in all of the these roulette strips, and this is more convincing. Starting with the floral motif sitting on the green dot the next similar motif to its right has a smaller central space in the upper part of the stem, it is largest in the green dot example, the one next has a smaller hole and the one next to that and even smaller hole. This is well shown in Metivier's illustration (rubbing) and all of my Brevarium examples follow this progression, proving that this is the same Roulette and that it has the same flaws.




click to enlarge


(click on this image to see an enlargement)


Comparative Diagram 4 - 1698 dentelle vs Barber's CDR 7


Fortunately a friend sent me a reference to Barber's notes on Boyet's tools, after searching through it I found his CDR 7 Roll, this is obviously the same imprint as you can see in Comparative Diagram 4. In the CDR 7 description, Barber makes no mention of Metivier who had already illustrated this Boyet tool in 2002. Unfortunately I have to point that he was wrong about the length of this roulette, that he describes as "Four repeats at 38 mm". My investigation of this roulette partially shown in Comparative Diagram 3, and further in Comparative Diagram 4 with green dots, demonstrates that it has a length of 11.11 cm. This roulette may be catalogued as lab-m-R-3 (Luc-Antoine Boyet Metivier roulette 3).



click to enlarge


(click on this image to see an enlargement)


Comparative Diagram 5 - 1698 dentelle detail vs 1696 dentelle detail


In Comparative Diagram 5, I want to draw your attention to an special imprint designated "fer a". In their small book entitled Reliures françaises du XVIIe siècle, Isabelle de Conihout & Pascal Ract-Madoux, Paris, 2002. devoted a chapter to the works of Boyet. In the back pages of this book the authors include a limited inventory of rubbings taken from the imprints of the tools commonly used by Boyet, in this we find their fer a I have detailed this on another page (click here to see it). This is another important proof that we are looking at a Boyet, binding however look carefully at the differences in these two examples the 1698 imprint has much more gold packed into it the details are not as clearly visible and one might even be tempted to say that these imprints derive from a different tool. I don't think so but this is something to bear in mind, and single imprint can appear in a variety of forms depending on a lot of variables. Only by looking at multiple examples can one attempt to give a really reliable appraisal.




http://www.virtual-bookbindings.org/boyet-breviarium-index.html
Click here to see the next page...


Click here to see a page INDEX


Click here to see a page view INDEX





click here to return to the HOME page.




click here to see an INDEX of the 2017 pages.

see below links to previous work






Atelier I B 31/10/2014





Icons of the Renaissance 06/02/2014





Atelier au trefle 22/12/2014




Atelier Royal 1518 - 1524 09/11/2014





Unraveling G. D. Hobson's book on fanfares 27/11/2014





16c fanfare on eBay 23/11/2014




another Padeloup binding on eBay 07/12/2014


the last Padeloup fanfare?


Rare Padeloup binding on eBay 15/11/2014



Pierre-Paul Dubuisson's work attributed to Derone le jeune 23/10/2014 (unfinished work now finished)


Pierre-Paul Dubuisson's work attributed to Douceur 22/10/2014 (an under contruction page finished at last)


Louis-Marie Michon - the 1956 Disaster 19/10/2014 (an unfinished page finished at last)


Louis XII Dolphins motif 03/02/2014


Aristophanes Binder 1543 02/02/2014


Atelier des reliures LOUIS XII - Atlas Catalan 12/01/2014


Atelier des reliures LOUIS XII - FRANÇOIS Ier - Linacre bindings 05/01/2014


Atelier des reliures LOUIS XII - FRANÇOIS Ier c. 1500-1520


Atelier des reliures LOUIS XII - FRANÇOIS Ier - Chronology 16/01/2014


Atelier des reliures LOUIS XII - FRANÇOIS Ier - Inventory - binding No. 29 19/01/2014


Atelier des reliures LOUIS XII - FRANÇOIS Ier - Inventory - binding No. 39 19/01/2014


Atelier des reliures LOUIS XII - FRANÇOIS Ier - The mysterious disappearance of François Tissard d'Amboise 23/01/2014


Atelier des reliures LOUIS XII - FRANÇOIS Ier - The Simon Vostre fiasco 18/01/2014


L'Atelier Simon Vostre 1486-1521 01/01/2014


L'Atelier de Pierre Roffet 1511-1533 - TOOL CATALOGUE 26/01/2014


L'Atelier de Pierre Roffet 1511-1533 27/12/2013


Pierre Roffet - fleur-de-lis binder 28/12/2013


Fleur-de-lis Binder 1525-1540 27/11/2013


Du Saix Master 02/12/2013


Atelier Étienne Roffet 1538-1549 12/12/2013


Atelier Jean Picard 1538-1547


Imitative Binder c.1540 15/12/2013


Salel Binder 1540 17/11/2013


Atelier Ruette 1606-1669 INVENTORY


Atelier Macé Ruette 1606-1644


Atelier du Maitre Doreur 1622-1638


Atelier Antoine Ruette 1638-1669


Atelier des Caumartin 1652-1715


Atelier de Charenton 1670-1685


Atelier Luc-Antoine Boyet 1685-1733


Atelier Antoine-Michel Padeloup. dit Le Jeune 1685-1758


Atelier Louis Douceur 1721-1769


Atelier Pierre-Paul Dubuisson 1746-1762


Atelier Nicolas-Denis Derome, dit Derome le Jeune 1761-1788


Atelier Jean-Pierre Jubert, 1771-1793?


Atelier MM binder, 1770-179-?





A word of Caution

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.

Virtual Bookings, created by L. A. Miller return to the Home page of VIRTUAL BOOKBINDINGS

l.a.miller@mail.pf