| The partial reproduction of this Derome le jeune binding can be found in the British Library Database of Bookbindings shelfmarked 76k1(see this). In their information on this binding they had not attributed this work to anyone and so I thought it would be good to show some proof that it is in fact the work of Derome le Jeune (N.-D. Derome). They show three images for 76k1, the first is a partial image of the upper cover, the second a partial image of the spine, the third is of the Upper free end leaf and George III 's book plate. Also shown on this third image, but not mentioned is the inner dentelle roulette, this is a key element in establishing an attribution for this binding. |
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On previous page I have made a preliminary catalogue of the roulettes of Derome (see this) and on another page I show some other important examples of this roulette (see Comparative Diagram 4 on this page). We can find this roulette in Barbers 2013 catalogue listed as ROLL 75. There is odd thing about the information that Barber gives for this roulette. Barber who calls everything, including the cat next door, a 'Derome', failed to mention Derome in association with ROLL 75. However this roulette is certainly affiliated with Derome bindings. If anyone can prove that this roulette was originally owned J.-A. Derome that would be a huge discovery. For the moment I am doubtful, doubtful that W.Cat.42 was decorated by Jacques-Antoine Derome as Barber claims. While W.Cat.673 (his only other reference for ROLL 75) is a c.1770 binding where Barber's analysis is so confusing that we have to read it three times. I have recently made a page concerning this binding (where you can read Barbers analysis) (see this). We are in shock to find that Barber has NOT attributed this binding to Derome??? We can only guess that he is not the expert on Derome that we imagined. The first and major point here is that MANY Derome bindings are found with ROLL 75 employed as an inner dentelle roulette. To make matters worse Barber goes on to say that he has no idea who decorated W.Cat. 673! All this after researching several hundred bindings in his 1000 plus page catalogues, it is funny that no one piped up to mention that ROLL 75 might provide a vital clue in this mystery. |
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I found on the same day these two bindings, the Dubuisson, I found before in a Rahir catalogue and just now realized it is the same one that I have mentioned several years ago on a previous page in relation to Derome (see Comparative Diagram 5 on this page).
This time I found it in a Robert Hoe catalogue: One hundred and seventy-six historic and artistic book-bindings dating from the fifteenth century to the present time pictured by etchings, artotypes, and lithographs after the originals selected from the library of Robert Hoe volume 2 (see this), I found 76k1 on the same day, I thought that I had already found all the Derome bindings in the British Library database but this one was not attributed and harder to find. Here we find Derome making large dentelle bindings more or less identical to the ones Dubuisson was makeing two decades earlier, with tools that are copies of the tools that Dubuisson was employing when Derome was still a young boy. |
| In this diagram you will see just how close these tools are to being identical… even modern researchers like Mirjam Foot have not noticed the difference, (I think she may still be working with rubbings). No one seems to have tackled this subject of Derome's tools being exactly like those of Dubuisson, where did they come from, are they the copies that Boismare made and got fired for doing so (see Thoinan on this affair that came to light in 1754) If they are why didn't anyone complain like Dubuisson himself when he may have seen the dentelle bindings by Derome. Was Dubuisson's early and unexpected death somehow related to the Derome bindings? There were rumors that Derome bought Padeloup's tools after his death. Barber points to Gruel for an excuse for repeating this myth (pg. 273 Vol. I), and gives a reference to page 78 of Leon Gruel's Manuel historique et bibliographique de l'amateur de reliures (see this). |
| "Now, who is the Derome that continued the kind of binding and decoration inaugurated by Padeloup? I don't think anyone is quite sure on this subject so far, but, without asserting anything, it doesn't seem unlikely to me that it was Nicolas-Denis Derome. Be that as it may, the artist who so happily followed in his productions the footsteps of the great master of the eighteenth century, had, it is said, after the death of the latter, bought back at his sale part of his material and almost all his gilding irons; this explains the resemblance that can be seen between the productions of these two artists. It was he who created this particularity that can be found in the composition of the rich bindings he executed with: le fer dit à l'oiseau. With him, the binding itself was heavy, but the compositions of his laces were graceful and elegant, and could rival those of Padeloup." |
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Above is a rough translation of Gruel's text. For much more than 100 years this misinformation has been circulating and now today it is still being flaunted in the work of Barber. I will try to explain this, Padeloup hired Pierre-Paul Dubuisson as a doreur, that was Dubuisson's original profession, something that he proclaimed on his tickets, he was a doreur, i.e. his speciality was making gold tooled decoration, and we know that Padeloup hired Dubuisson because Padeloup did not pay his bills and the Dubuisson's took him to court about this, this is a known and well recorded fact. What we see in Comparative Diagram 2 is an example of the kind of binding that Dubuisson was making for Padeloup in the late 40s The tools that left these imprints must have been Dubuisson's own tools, because he used them for next decade. Now somewhere in the distant past people started attributing these large dentelle bindings to Padeloup, which is not unusual because Padeloup put his tickets inside them after Dubuisson did the decoration… when Gruel et al speak of Padeloup's fantastic dentelle bindings and the tools that made them, they are actually referring to the work of Dubuisson and resultantly to the tools of Dubuisson. This fable about Derome buying Padeloup's tools stems from this long standing confusion and misinformation (spread by experts). This is not hard to prove, and we don't really need to because it is so blatently evident. Try to find a single Padeloup tool in the work of Derome, there is not one, let alone many. Barber's claim about most of the bird tools belonging to Padeloup, derives mainly from his lack of knowing anything about the work of Dubuisson or Jubert or Delorme or Gosselin or … Dubuisson had at least 3 that he used all throughout his career, Jubert had 3. The one that Gruel illustrates is one of Jubert's, Barber did not even recognize it. If any of these birds belonged to Padeloup where do you see them in ANY of his bindings 1700 - 1740? Padeloup was the champion of using all his old tools throughout a 40 year period, after that he paid doreurs like the Dubuisson's especially for the larger bindings. Barber's whole theory about Padeloup and his tools and the Deromes is bogus and the worst kind misinformation because it is coming from a person who presents himself as someone with a high level of expertise, when in fact it is expertise that he has borrowed from everyone else without doing the original research himself. |
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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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