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Nicolas Boileau-Despréaux. Oeuvres, avec des eclaircissemens historiques. Paris, Veuve Alix, 1740. 2 volumes in 4, maroquin olive, roulette fleurdelisée et large dentelle en encadrement avec fleurs, fruits, motifs foliacés, armoiries centrales. "Dos à 5 nerfs richement ornés aux petits fers avec 2 pièces d'armes alternées, un serpent et un lion, roulette intérieure, doublure et gardes de papier dominoté à motifs de grandes fleurs jaunes, roses et taupe sur fond foliacé violet, tranches dorées (Reliure de l'époque). Un portrait par Rigaud gravé par Ravenet, un fleuron de titre répété, 7 vignettes par Trémollières gravées par Ravenet, 38 culs-de-lampe, dont certains répétés, 6 lettrines ornées, dont une répétée, et un fleuron à écusson. Exemplaire dans lequel on a relié les 6 planches hors texte de Cochin pour Le Lutrin, celles-ci placées dans un encadrement historié répété. Superbe exemplaire aux armes de Marie-Sophie-Emilie-Honorate Colbert, marquise de Seignelay, duchesse de Montmorency- Luxembourg . Elle fut la première femme de Charles-François, IIe du nom, de Montmorency, duc de Piney-Luxembourg, plus communément appelé le maréchal de Luxembourg (Olivier, 829). Couleur de la reliure inégalement passée." Nicolas Boileau-Despréaux. Works, with historical clarifications. Paris, Veuve Alix, 1740. 2 volumes in 4, olive morocco, roulette fleurdelisée and wide dentelle framed with flowers, fruit, foliated motifs ..., central coat of arms, back with 5 nerves richly decorated in small tools with 2 pieces of alternating armorial animals, a snake and a lion, inner roulette, lining and guards of brokat papier with patterns of large yellow flowers, pink and taupe on purple foliated background, gilded edges (Reliure de l'époque). A portrait by Rigaud engraved by Ravenet, 7 vignettes by Trémollières engraved by Ravenet, 38 culs-de-lamp, some of which repeated, 6 ornamented initials, including a repeated, and an escutcheon. Copy in which we connected the 6 plates out of text of Cochin for Le Lutrin, these placed in a repeated historical frame. Superb copy with the arms of Marie-Sophie-Emilie-Honorate Colbert, Marquise de Seignelay, Duchess of Montmorency-Luxembourg. She was the first wife of Charles-Francois, 2nd of the name, Montmorency, Duke of Piney-Luxembourg, more commonly called the Marshal of Luxembourg (Olivier, 829). Color of binding unevenly faded. |
| Above we see perhaps one of the oldest Douceur dentelles, barely a dentelle compared to what was coming a decade late. I see here a rare collection of early tools similar to our eBay Henault. I could be wrong as the Henault is 1749 and has many of the same tools, the most shared tools of any binding seen so far. I tried to find some infomation on Marie-Sophie-Emilie-Honorate Colbert, Marquise de Seignelay, Duchess of Montmorency-Luxembourg, What I discovered is that she is listed in a book entitled Les Femmes bibliophiles de France, XVIe, XVIIe & XVIIIe siècles and that she died in 1747 at the young age of 35 (Born 22 December 1711 (Tuesday) - Paris, Deceased 29 October 1747 (Sunday) , age at death: 35 years old. In the book she has 9 books listed to her name that bear her arms the oldest of these dates to 1746. So at a guess I imagine then this Boileau would not have been made after 1747, and could be even as old as 1740. |
| In my speculations at the top of this page, I forgot to take into account the BnF example shown above that is dated closely to 1745, the flower imprint d-21-5, is not included here and so could indicate that this is an older production than the Boileau at the top of this page which I now tentatively date to 1746. Below I show the roulette d-roulette-4. This I have been able to study carefully thanks to the high resolution images available on the BnF, Gallica pages for this binding (click here to see them). This roulette I was tempted to call an alternating fleur de lys and acanthus motif, but now after looking at my pages on acanthus, think its probably something else that any French person would know. After looking at this roulette for some time I spotted an unusual hole in one of the acanthus leaves and this allowed me to cut and paste strips of roulette together to confirm that this defect did indeed repeat itself. Thus I was able to calculate the circumference of the entire wheel, which would have had a diameter of nearly 3 cm. I show this in Comparative Diagram 4. This is an early roulette that may lead us to discover more bindings from the workshop of Louis Douceur. |
| In the following Comparative Diagrams I present high resolution images of important early tools from the workshop of Louis Douceur. These are the earliest I have found so far but start at 1745, we know that Douceur started his career as a binder in 1721 so there is a big gap here, but these early tools will help us find the earlier bindings. |
| Below in Comparative Diagram 8, we see a collection of imprints from BnF, RLR, RES P-YF-243, this binding was our discovery on the first page of this research concerning the eBay 1749 Henault. It is found in the Bibliotheque Nationale de France where it has been attributed to Padeloup le jeune on the basis of the gold tooled imprints. We have prooved conclusively and incontrovertably that these imprints do not derive from the workshop of Padeloup but are instead from the workshop of Louis Douceur. |
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click here to return to the INDEX of the 1749 Henault pages. 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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