| The binding shown above is found in a 1997 LIBRAIRIE SOURGET - MANUSCRITS ET LIVRES PRECIEUX - CATALOGUE N° XV. page 328, lot 137. I have included the Sourget text as it contains some information that I have not seen anywhere else. I stumbled upon this great discovery not realizing that it was in this catalogue that I recently purchased on eBay. This binding by Jacques-Antoine Derome is very rare and the tools that were used to decorated equally rare, we do not find these exact tools on many other bindings. After years of searching for a Jacques-Antoine Derome binding that I was certain about, a binding with imprints that could not be linked to other binders such as Dubuisson, or Douceur, I finally found this binding in a black an white reproduction in a 1965 Sotheby's catalogue, CATALOGUE OF VALUABLE PRINTED BOOKS AND FINE BINDINGS FROM THE CELEBRATED COLLECTION, THE PROPERTY OF MAJOR J.R. ABBEY. Plate 42, lot No. 377. |
| In Comparative Diagram 1, we see the color photograph of the lower spine that was perhaps taken 1997 as opposed to the black and white example that was taken at least 30 years earlier. We notice that the black and white example was perhaps a little over exposed, while the color image is a bit sharper. The palette used by J A Derome is a rather strange mystery, the motifs rather misshapen and lacking in uniformity, however they are not very clear in these images, and yet are never found much clearer than this, thus they are often difficult to identify with certainty. Having said that, it can also be said that this palette is easy to recognize due to its rustic character. Notice that the crown of the central fleuron in the spine panel is also a bit sharper in this colored version. Click here to see another similar J A Derome binding. |
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Last year I spent a lot of time researching the work of Derome le jeune as well as the work of his father Jacques-Antoine Derome. Now that we know for certain that J A did execute a number of bindings as early as 1745 the question then is which bindings are those of J A and which are the work of Derome le jeune? At this point in time I do not know whether Derome le jeune was apprenticed to his father, we only know that Derome received his official papers as a master binder when he was 30. He is thought to have been born in 1731 "reçu maître le 31 mars 1761 mais indique avoir succédé à son père Jacques-Antoine dès 1760" this statement from the Bibliotheque nationale de France, suggests that he took over his fathers business even before he had his master's papers. We have to wonder why he was not officially a binder before the age of thirty. In theory he could have been apprenticed at 16 and possibly had his papers by the time he was 24 or younger. He probably was fully able to do the work by at least 1755. J A on the other hand was 64 when he died in 1760 and may not have been working in the last years of his life. These facts lead me to speculate that there may have been considerable mixing in the work attributed to these two men. Now that we have determined that these early mosaics are the work of J A and see that the decorative tools that he used are later found in the work of Derome le jeune, we can put an end to the speculation of Thoinan about these tools. Thoinan intimated that J A never owned any such tools as they did not show up in the inventory of his home or workshop upon his death. Thus begging the question of whether or not J A Derome actually did any of the gold tooling found on bindings with his ticket inside them. Now it seems reasonable to think that J A did work as a relieur and dorer, and that his tools were passed on to his son sometime before his death. Marie-Louis Michon, has attributed many bindings to J A derome, howvever most of these were actually made by Pierre-Paul Dubuisson, who was perhaps employed as a dorer early in his career by J A Derome. In as much as my early research on binders of this period focused first and formost on Dubuisson, I quickly noticed that Derome had more or less identical tools, and accepted Thoinan's view that J A did not even possess such tools. Now I must admit that this assumption was wrong and start to reassess this issue from a completely different point of view. I have said in the past that Derome le jeune only copied the work of Dubuisson, and that the originality of the dentelle designs and tools derives from Dubuisson. However if we are now forced to admit that J A had similar tools as early as 1743 then my claim to Dubuisson originality may be mistaken. Probably one of the most important tools of this period is le fer a l'oiseau, I have always considered this a Dubuisson invention and the Derome example as a reversed copy. Now we need to find out who was the first to use this tool. Click here to see an important binding that may have been made by J A Derome. |
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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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