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The photograph at the top of the page is from the cover of a 2008 Christie's auction catalogue Valuable Manuscripts and Printed Books they are showing Item No. 303 MARMONTEL. I show the item information above however... ATTENTION ...THE DECORATION OF THIS BINDING IS NOT THE WORK OF DEROME!!! This prestigious binding made for Geroge III King of England was made by Delorme as we can easily proove, and have done so previously on previous page (click here to see it ) however I want to focus on how it was made. |
| The reproduction shown above is found in Livres dans de Riches Reliures des Seizième, Dix-Septième, Dix-Huitième et Dix-Neuvième Siècle by Édouard RAHIR, Paris 1910. I show in Comparative Diagram 1, the two plaques that were used by Delorme to make dozens of bindings from 1769 to 1774. |
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A careful study of Derlorme's 2 plaque Almanach Royal bindings (1769-1774) reveals some important observations. The first is that up to 1769 most of the Almanach Royal bindings were about 20 cm tall some a little less, then to make these 2 plaque bindings the size went to 22 cm tall or more (22.4) and these bindings lacked raised bands, the new English horror. Thoinan records in his details about Delorme quotes from La Reliure, poëme didactique en six chants... by Mathurin-Marie Lesné in1820. "De Delorme fuyez la méthode perverse , Pour imiter l'Anglais, par trop d'ambition, II ne put conserver sa réputation" From this I gather that Delorme was one of the first to get a repution for this kind of binding, it is one of the few things that we know about Delorme today. When I was preparing Comparative Diagram 2, I was careful to get the size of these plaques exact and when I tried to place them together, I discovered that it was a very tight fit on a binding 22 cm tall. In Comparative Diagram 3 we see an interesting detail that may or may not relate to binding size, sometime in 1773 this side plaque was either broken or deliberately reduced in width by the removal of the part after the loop, you can see this on the King George III binding. |
| It may be that this plaque was purposely reduced for this very binding, however the following year Delorme added small filler ornaments to this plaque and here we see that Delorme was truly an expert at doing this, he added ornaments to the corner plaques and it was only after many close inspections that I was sure that these were additions, all very precisely placed. |
| In Comparative Diagram 4 we see that Delorme simply doubled the side plaque to accomodate these larger bindings. In the 1763 Madame de Pompadour example the side plaque was an earlier model del-sp-a, shown below in comparative Diagram 5 . Note that in all of the side plaque models that I have shown, the central top ornament is only a reconstruction. This part of the plaque is almost always covered with an accessory ornament that hides the true shape. |
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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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