| On the previous page we made a lengthy analysis of the tools found on binding W.Cat 423, described by Giles Barber in his book entitled Catalogue of Printed Books and Bookbindings: The James A. de Rothschild Bequest at Waddesdon Manor. What I completely forgot is that I had already made a page on this in 2018 (click here to see it). The picture shown above is from an online publictity brochure for Barber's book (click here to see it). Here is a shock, there are so many tools on this binding that Barber did not manage to record them all. We are going to look at some of the more important ones first |
| Almost 10 years ago in 2010 I created a page where I was comparing Dubuisson's tools and I see on that page 3 examples of pd-4-3, I have imported the diagram from that page to be in Comparative Diagram 4 with a few minor changes (click here to see it). That was a few years before Barber published his book, and obviously he never saw it for if he had, he would have recognized his CB 6 as Dubuisson pd-4-3, and noticed that he had omitted some critical details in his type model for this tool. He has shown it without the lower legs. This is a strange omission for if you study the many other examples of this tool, you can't help but notice that they all have legs. This particular bird tool, fer à l'oiseau may be an early Dubuisson example, it appears on a 1743 Semaine Sainte... however that may been decorated later, perhaps around c. 1750 (click here to see more Dubuisson allover decorative bindings. You can also find this same Dubuisson tool being used by Delorme as late as 1772. Delorme used Dubuisson's other examples of this type as well. What I want to show here is that the W.Cat 423 binding was probably made by Delorme sometime before or just after the death of Dubuisson, I say this because of the many Dubuisson tools present. As the work of Delorme progresses over the years the Dubuisson tools become fewer and replaced with new Delorme tools. |
| In Comparative Diagram 5, we compare part of a possibly early Dubuisson allover design with the W.Cat 423 dentelle, notice the pd-31 pair have been employed in an identical fashion. However Barber never recorded this impint. Strangely he recorded the smaller tools like the pd 32 pair calling them FR 6 and FR 8. |
| In Comparative Diagram 7, I have tried to compare some different examples of this pair of tools pd-32 with Barber's FR 6 and FR 8, the first obvious thing is that there is little or no difference between Fr 6 and FR 8. What I imagine is that FR 6 was actually supposed to be the pd-31 pair which he does not show. |
| In Comparative Diagram 8, we see Barber's FR 21 pair this is similar but not the same as the pd-36 pair that appear to be what we see in W.Cat 423, mysteriously missing from Barber's catalogue. |
| In Comparative Diagram 9, we see another Dubuisson imprint pd-7-2 that Barber failed to include in his list of W.Cat 423 imprints, it can be seen three times and is in fact his DCT 8. |
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In Comparative Diagram 10, we have covered most of the centerpiece tools listed by Barber. I may have missed some but they will be small, we see two more tools, a pair of fronds (del-33a and del-33b) that are not shown in Barber's catalogue. These are critically important tools that become very popular, in fact rise dominate the decoration over the next 20 years. I did not find, in my catalogue of Dubuisson tools, this exact size, but they would be easy to miss as you might think that they are a pd-33-2 pair, in fact these are bit larger than those, and larger than any of the similar examples in Barber's catalogue. Perhaps these are Delorme's own set. There is here in the decoration of this binding an exceptional variety of tools, masterfully excuted to produce this sumptous dentelle. Following the designs and methods of Dubuisson, Delorme achieved a high point in this graceful composition, there is nothing to distract or disappoint the eye. Here is yet more proof that Delorme was one of the great artists of 18th century decorative bookbinding. Small wonder that Giles Barber chose this binding for the cover of his Second Volume of Catalogue of Printed Books and Bookbindings: The James A. de Rothschild Bequest at Waddesdon Manor printed in 2013 . Barber put an enormous amount of work into the study of these bindings to produce these books, and yet after all his research he still did not know the name of the artist who decorated this binding. |
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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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