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French Decorative Bookbinding - Eighteenth Century

MM Binder - J B Gosselin 1785 (MS 1546)


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Instructions données à Lapeyrouse pour son voyage de découvertes autour du monde
Louis XVI, 1785.

photos ©Bibliothèque Mazarine.

(click to see an enlargement).




The image shown above is an enlargement of the MS 1546 doublure corner, I want to show you here some tools that I have not seen before or at least have not catalogued up till now. Looking at the perfection of this tooling and the beauty of the gold tooled imprints themselves, we can say this decorative binding was truly fit for a King. One has to realize that when you are making something like this you cannot make a mistake, any mistake is immediately obvious you have only one chance to get it right, it takes steady hands, cool nerves, and a total confidence in one's self. The artist who made this binding was setting a high bench mark for Dubisson's school of elaborate 18th century dentelles. This is a dentelle in the style of Dubuisson some 35 years or more after Dubuisson was making them famous. No doubt he would have admired this work as much as we do now centuries later.



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Comparative Diagram 1 - imprints from MS 1546 vs Pierre-Paul Dubuisson inprints (pd-31)
(click to see an enlargement).




In Comparative Diagram 1, I show an imprint from the MS 1546 doublure that resembles very closely Dubuisson's imprint pd-31. I had not seen it before and will have to shuffle around a bit the old catalogue where I have already a mm-31, here however is the obvious right one. Now that we know the MM binder is J B Gosselin I am wondering how I am going to recatalogue all the imprints as perhaps gos-31 instead of mm-31.



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Comparative Diagram 2 - MS 1546 doublure vs Pierre-Paul Dubuisson dentelle.
(click to see an enlargement).



In Comparative Diagram 2, I show the MS 1546 doublure next to an early Dubuisson binding with a large dentelle. These two bindings are not the same size I only show them here as the same size for comparative purposes. Many of the imprints found on Dubuisson's binding are some of the earliest I have seen and I date this binding tentatively as being made sometime around 1747- 49, a full decade ahead of Derome le jeune who had a set of tools made that copied Dubuisson's tools so closely that even today few people including world famous experts are able to distinguish between them. Derome then imitated Dubuisson designs and arrangements. However the most confusing part of this period, mid 18th century, is that the Dubuisson's, Pierre-Paul and his father Reny worked for Padeloup, they decorated bindings that we now find with Padeloup's etiquette pasted inside . Thus the Dubuisson binding shown above was attributed to Padeloup in the early part of the 20th century. Most of Dubuison's early work is still attributed to Padeloup. However it is a simple matter to prove that the tools seen on this binding are the same tools Dubuisson used for a full decade to follow.



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Comparative Diagram 3 - Gosselin MS 1546 vs Derome c22f3
(click to see an enlargement).



As we also now know that Gosselin was linked to the family Derome by marriage, we cannot overlook the possibility that Gosselin may have even worked for Derome. In Comparative Diagram 3, we compare Gosselin's work to that of Derome, these two bindings could even be contemporaneous. Certainly some imprints are nearly identical as well as the general dentelle arrangement that was first mastered by Dubuisson almost four decades earlier.




detail


Gold tooled by Gosselin - master of the art



Looking at this detail from Gosselin's 1785 binding for Louis XVI, there is no doubt in my mind that this is some of the finest gold tooling that was ever produced in the 18th century, yet his name is barely known.




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click this link to see similar recent MM Binder pages MM Binder - 1768 Office de la quinzaine de Pasque




click this link to see more MM Binder pages Atelier MM binder, fl. 1770-179?





click here to see the INDEX of all the pages from 2017.


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see below links to previous work






Atelier I B 31/10/2014





Icons of the Renaissance 06/02/2014





Atelier au trefle 22/12/2014




Atelier Royal 1518 - 1524 09/11/2014





Unraveling G. D. Hobson's book on fanfares 27/11/2014





16c fanfare on eBay 23/11/2014




another Padeloup binding on eBay 07/12/2014


the last Padeloup fanfare?


Rare Padeloup binding on eBay 15/11/2014



Pierre-Paul Dubuisson's work attributed to Derone le jeune 23/10/2014 (unfinished work now finished)


Pierre-Paul Dubuisson's work attributed to Douceur 22/10/2014 (an under contruction page finished at last)


Louis-Marie Michon - the 1956 Disaster 19/10/2014 (an unfinished page finished at last)


Louis XII Dolphins motif 03/02/2014


Aristophanes Binder 1543 02/02/2014


Atelier des reliures LOUIS XII - Atlas Catalan 12/01/2014


Atelier des reliures LOUIS XII - FRANÇOIS Ier - Linacre bindings 05/01/2014


Atelier des reliures LOUIS XII - FRANÇOIS Ier c. 1500-1520


Atelier des reliures LOUIS XII - FRANÇOIS Ier - Chronology 16/01/2014


Atelier des reliures LOUIS XII - FRANÇOIS Ier - Inventory - binding No. 29 19/01/2014


Atelier des reliures LOUIS XII - FRANÇOIS Ier - Inventory - binding No. 39 19/01/2014


Atelier des reliures LOUIS XII - FRANÇOIS Ier - The mysterious disappearance of François Tissard d'Amboise 23/01/2014


Atelier des reliures LOUIS XII - FRANÇOIS Ier - The Simon Vostre fiasco 18/01/2014


L'Atelier Simon Vostre 1486-1521 01/01/2014


L'Atelier de Pierre Roffet 1511-1533 - TOOL CATALOGUE 26/01/2014


L'Atelier de Pierre Roffet 1511-1533 27/12/2013


Pierre Roffet - fleur-de-lis binder 28/12/2013


Fleur-de-lis Binder 1525-1540 27/11/2013


Du Saix Master 02/12/2013


Atelier Étienne Roffet 1538-1549 12/12/2013


Atelier Jean Picard 1538-1547


Imitative Binder c.1540 15/12/2013


Salel Binder 1540 17/11/2013


Atelier Ruette 1606-1669 INVENTORY


Atelier Macé Ruette 1606-1644


Atelier du Maitre Doreur 1622-1638


Atelier Antoine Ruette 1638-1669


Atelier des Caumartin 1652-1715


Atelier de Charenton 1670-1685


Atelier Luc-Antoine Boyet 1685-1733


Atelier Antoine-Michel Padeloup. dit Le Jeune 1685-1758


Atelier Louis Douceur 1721-1769


Atelier Pierre-Paul Dubuisson 1746-1762


Atelier Nicolas-Denis Derome, dit Derome le Jeune 1761-1788


Atelier Jean-Pierre Jubert, 1771-1793?


Atelier MM binder, 1770-179-?





A word of Caution

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.

Virtual Bookings, created by L. A. Miller return to the Home page of VIRTUAL BOOKBINDINGS

l.a.miller@mail.pf