| The reproduction shown above is a reconstruction of images from HISTORICAL BINDING DATABASE - ARTISTIC (click here to visit this important site which is part of the Royal Library of Spain. I was absolutely amazed to find here a collection od Almanach Royals that include the period when Dubuisson first started making decorative bookbindings. According to the BnF biographical information on Dubuisson, he started around 1746 and died at the age of 55 in 1762, this means he started bookbinding when he was 39? He must have been doing something else before decorative bookbinding. Anyway the wonderful part of this discovery in the Royal Library is that we have a clear chronological sequence of Dubuisson's work from the early mosaics to the spectacular foil lined mosaics that continued to be made by Delorme decades after Dubuisson passed away. |
| In Comparative Diagram we see the binding that we have been looking at (142) on the previous page compared with this 1750 Royal Almanach. The similarities are striking, compared with the 1749 Almanach Royal shown below. I suspect that these two bindings are contemporaneous. |
| Here we have something really precious, proof positive that this bird tool was used by Dubuisson as early as 1749. The specialists who catalogued this binding in the Royal Library have attributed it to Pierre-Paul Dubuisson. In Comparative Diagram 2, I have used my own 1200dpi scan of Dubuisson imprints and compare them with the relatively low resolution 1749 imprints, still we can see that these imprints derive from the same tools. |
| We can see in the 1750 Almanach Royal at the top of this page many new tools were introduced from the scant few in 1749 one of the more important of these are the pd-46-6 imprints, these inprints enable us to know if this binding was decorated by Dubuisson and not J A Derome who has an almost identical tool, however by good fortune we can always tell when we are looking at a Dubuisson 46-6, there is a small flaw in the 46a I have marked it with a small green arrow in Comparative Diagram 4. |
| In Comparative Diagram 5, I show a rare Dubuisson imprint that I have not previously catalogued. This is an unusual tool for Dubuisson it is right out of the previous century, and would fit in with the tools of le Gascon. |
| We have now cataloged most of the Dubuisson mosaic tools from 1749 to 1750 we can proceed to 1751 in our search for these important tools. These very tools that Marie-Louise Michon chose to ingnore and which resulted in the biggest fiasco the history of bookbinding expertise has ever known. |
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click here to see more Pierre-Paul Dubuisson 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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