| I know that some of you might think that the binding shown above is a briefcase, however this another Livre Rouge type book where the contents are top secret and under lock and key. I found this item in a 2012 Christies auction catalogue Appartement parisien de M et Mme John Gutfreund (click here to see it). The Christie's photo of this item is not that great however good enough for us to see that this dentelle roulette is the same as the one we have examined on page 43. On that page we established that Delorme had copied an earlier Dubuisson style with a new roulette very similar to the old Dubuisson model. |
| In Comparative Diagram 1, we can see that this 1783 roulette is the same as the 1770 example, even if the details are not sharp there is a 99 percent chance that these imprints derive from the same tool. that is noticably different compared to the Dubuisson original. |
| In his 2013 publication Giles Barber presented a tool catalogue, with various examples that he had studied. His first category is called the Bulbous Vase tool he presents 15 examples of this tool, however his first example BV 1, is so close to this one found on Delorme's dentelle, that I will be very surprised if they are not the same. Shown in Comparative Diagram 2, even with the limitation of blurry detail, I am certain this must be the same tool and if it is then we have to investigate W.Cat. 774 and 775. Now as I am writing this I decide to search the internet for Portefeuille de Monsieur de Voltaire and hit the JACKPOT! |
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There are a number of photos of Voltaire's portefeuille on the internet due to it having been on display on numerous occasions at the Morgan Library. Here we see a real briefcase decorated by Delorme, and we notice the same outer roulette that he used on the Choiseul bindings (click here to see this). Due to the limitations of this photo we cannot go too far in an analysis of the imprints however the fact that we see only a few Delorme imprints suggests that this may have been made around the same period as the Choiseul work in the mid 60's. However when you look into Voltaire's biography, you discover that he was banned from Paris in 1754 by Louis XV and he did not return to Paris until 1778 an absence of almost 25 years, could it be that this briefcase was not made until 1778? Note also Barber's mention of CB 6, we have detailed this imprint on page 24-2. After further searches on the internet for portefeuilles I have found some things that force me to change my initial bulbous vase speculations, we will look at these on the next page. |
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| 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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