| The binding shown above is found in the 1968 New York publication Catalogue One Hundred Eight by Martin Breslaurer Inc. In 1968 there was not a great deal known about the Plumet who decorated this binding, and today the situation is nearly the same however as we have been researching the bindings by Plumet, we now have a partial catelogue of his tools. Leon Gruel was the first to reproduce this binding in 1905 as mentioned in the information above, Gruel also made the mistake of attributing the gold tooled decoration of this binding to Le Monnier. We do not see any of Le Monnier's tools decorating this binding, however I am going to demonstrate that there are numerous Plumet tools in evidence here. In the past the 'experts' wanted to add prestige to this binding by claiming that it was the work of Le Monnier a well known bookbinding family in 18th century France. They relegated the actual work of the binding of this book to Plumet. This error and injustice can now be swept aside in the light of our recent discoveries. Perhaps the most significant information here concerning this binding is that it was 'signed by Plumet and Le Monnier" and now that we can see that the tools used to decorate this binding are those of Plumet, we can consider this binding as a signed Plumet and that is highly important and a rare bit of good fortune, as it permits us to identify Plumet tools with relative certainty. |
| Some time ago we looked at a series of bindings that could be linked to a signed binding by Plumet, by the 6th page we had definitive proof that these bindings could all be linked back to the original signed binding (click here to see this page). In Comparative Diagram 1, I show a corner detail from the binding shown on that page. In Comparative Diagram 2 we see the same Plumet pair of imprints are also found in this 1768 Statuts. |
| In Comparative Diagram 3, we see that Barber's imprint FL 156 is found in these Plumet bindings. Below in Comparative Diagram 4, I show what must be one of the most important imprints in the Plumet toolkit, this imprint appears in some of Louis Douceurs most important bindings. We can assume that Plumet worked for Douceur at least from the time of the appearence of this tool in Douceur bindings. |
| In Comparative Diagram 5 and 6, I show Plumet imprints that have been used repeatedly in this 1768 Statuts, these can be seen dispersed throughout the dentelle decoration, nowhere do we see a sign of any of Le Monnier's easily identifed tools. |
| In Comparative Diagram 7, we encounter what appears to be a René-François Fétil tool, this should not be a surprise considering that both men worked for Douceur and perhaps shared tools, Barber's FL 156 shown in Comparative Diagram 3 could be considered another Fetil tool, or even a Douceur tool. It is surprising that Gruel went to the trouble of making a replica of this binding with similar tools (click here to see it) without realizing that the decoration of this binding was not that of Le Monnier. |
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click here to see the INDEX of the 2017 pages. click here to return to the HOME page. see below links to previous work |
| 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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