| This two volume set of books, showed up on eBay in April 2021. I am showing here the seller's actual photos that were more than adequate to convince me that they could have been bound and decorated by Boyet. Still there were some doubts in my mind about them. They were listed as being from 1712, but once they arrived I discovered that they were in fact published in 1741, eight years after the death of Luc-Antoine Boyet. Actually the date as shown on the title page above was quite easy to confound with 1712. In as much as I have detailed now a number of post Boyet bindings this was another chance to investigate such bindings, who made them and when? First however I wanted real proof that the imprints decorating these 1741 books were actually those of Boyet. This leads us to Comparative Diagram 1, where I have placed a 1689 Boyet imprint lab-16 next to a 1741 example the made an over lay experiment using the lab-16 imprint (resized to 2400dpi, reduced to a 50% transparency and color reversed) placed over the 1741imprint which is a 2400dpi scan. The 1741 scan is never going to be perfect because of the raised spines that prevent the imprint surface from resting flat on the scanner, however these imprints are so small that the slightest deviation in size or form will be obvious immediately. However we do see differences, differences that have resulted in wear and tear on this Boyet tool after more than 4 decades of extensive use. The branch pairs the have been employed in the corners have either faired not so well or are not the same tools. This is a tough call, however if you stare at Comparative Diagram 2 long enough you may see some convincing similarities. |
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In Comparative Diagram 3, I show a diagram that derives from another page
where we were looking at some bindings that Boyet made for Jeanne Baptiste d'Albert de Luynes, comtesse de Verrue "Despite a dazzling collection of art, she was one of the greatest bibliophiles of her time. She kept them in a large room furnished with Boulle pieces and overlooking the garden. She possessed around 18,000 volumes" La Comtesse died in 1736 at the age of 66, Boyet decorated many of her books and it is not inconceivable that certain of her books were bound and decorated in the post Boyet period by the Boyet workshop. While I was rushing to complete the Verrue pages I failed to notice a number of important details in the imprint that I catalogued as lab-50. Now that I was able to take high resolution photographs of this 1741 binding and started to compare the imprints with other Boyet bindings, I focused on what appeared to be a lab-50 but was it? Either it had suffered a mishap like perhaps the tool being dropped on the floor and the end flattened, or it was not the same tool. Then while I was looking at some of my photos of this imprint I noticed the unusual shape of the interior of this pod like form, certainly it is a form that derived from the long history of seed pods or buds (see this page) |
| In Comparative Diagram 4, we can see then this strange interior shape of lab-50 and that it corresponds well with the Verrue example. It is when I started comparing these two images that I noticed firstly that there are two satellite dots that accompany lab-50 and we notice too the strong possibility that even the branch leafs and dots line up well. but I also noticed a detail in my high resolution photo that was missing in the c67a3 and rather mysterious. Then by a fortunate coincidence I spotted the same mysterious detail in the other Verrue binding shown in comparative diagram 3. I show this in Comparative Diagram 5. |
| In Comparative Diagram 5, I have pointed out with green arrows corresponding details, note particularly the elements that disappear at the edge of the panels. These arcs then are also part of the lab-50, and may be circles. It is not uncommon for a decorator to use the upper part of a larger imprint while decorating the edges of spine panels. Due to the curvature of the spine only part of the imprint appears. In the case of lab-50 this is rarely obvious and almost always hidden under bordering fillets or roulettes. In Comparative Diagram 6 we see an overlay experiment, where the 1741 imprint has been reduced to a 50% transparency, color inverted and placed over the Verrue example. the satellite dots and arcs match up as well as much of the lab-50 form, thus indicating the strong possibility that these imprints are the same. When we realize that these are the same imprints we begin to suspect that the branches were also made with the same Boyet tools. |
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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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