| The screen shot shown above is a copy of the BnF catalogue entry for Étienne II Anguerrand, which I mentioned on a previous page, here we see that the Bibliotheque nationale de France, state that Étienne II Anguerrand succeeded his father as relieur de roi in 1775 and that they have not yet identified any of his work. You will notice that they do not show Leon Gruel in their references, however if you take the time to look in the second volume of Gruel's famous work Manuel historique et bibliographique de l'amateur de reliures you will find a different story. I show below the actual text from page 22 of the second volume. Here Gruel tells us that Étienne II Anguerrand succeeded his father as relieur de roi in 1767 and provides us with a copy of the text of the actual brevet from the Archives Nationales. |
| More importantly Gruel found a signed 1782 receipt detailing Anguerrand's work and its pricing, which he reproduces in facsimile, (shown below). Gruel notes that some of the bindings were made for the queen Marie Antoinette. |
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I decided to search for everything Auguerrand on the internet and trying all sorts of different search combinations I finally discovered something very interesting. Searching Auguerrand and Marie Antoinette together I stumbled on a recent Bibliorare web page, that was truly a lucky find. (click here to see it) This is a 2018 auction catalogue page: PIERRE BERGE & associés - En association avec SOTHEBY'S. Bibliothèque de Pierre Bergé. Quatrième vente. À la mémoire de Pierre Bergé (1930-2017). VENDREDI 14 DECEMBRE 2018 à 14h00 Drouot. On this page we find Lot No. 895 HOMÈRE. L'Iliade et l'Odyssée, traduites en vers françois. Par M. de Rochefort, de l'Académie Royale des Inscriptions & Belles-Lettres. Nouvelle édition. Paris, Imprimerie Royale, 1781. 2 volumes in-4 [253 x 195 mm] de (2) ff., 739 pp. ; (2)Š "EXEMPLAIRE DE LA REINE MARIE-ANTOINETTE EN MAROQUIN ROUGE D'ÉTIENNE ANGUERRAND". (this is how I found it). |
| First it was exciting to find any kind of binding by Étienne II Anguerrand, but even more exciting was to find a copy of the same document that Gruel presented in facsimile BUT with one major difference, here was a part that Gruel never showed us, here was the complete document! |
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You might wonder how a scrap of old paper could be exciting, but look closely at the bottom of the first part, we see written... "La grande Gallerie de Versailles en maroquin rouge aux armes du Roy et une tres grande dentelle" ...and the price 120 livres, this is a lot for the binding of one folio book, and on the next page of the document there is another, that I suppose to be the same as it is also 120 livres, this means that there is somewhere, probably in the Bibliotheque nationale de France and associated libraries, at least one of these folio dentelle bindings by Étienne II Anguerrand, and this document will verify that attribution. I have not yet found this book "La grande Gallerie de Versailles", please call me if you do. |
| As a final note on this page I present Barber's CBB 3 imprint that is actually from these very bindings, proof that he was not aware of this story or who the binder of these bindings might have been, as he mistakenly attributes this imprint to Derome le jeune. |
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click here to return to the HOME page. click here to see an INDEX of the 2017 pages. 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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