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French Decorative Bookbinding - Eighteenth Century

Louis Douceur 1747


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The reproduction of the binding shown above is from the online catalogue pages of GAZETTE DROUOT (click here to see this). I was shocked when I saw this, at first there seemed very little Douceur about it, however the palette is a dead giveaway. I wanted to find out the size of this binding and started searching with Google with the exact references as given Heures Royales, contenant l'Office de la Vierge... Paris, Méquignon, 1741. Google had indexed about 30 trillion web pages, 7 years ago, they are not telling you how many it is now but you can imagine that the amount is increasing logarithmically... 130 trillion in 2016, it's safe to say that its a couple hundred trillion by now... and even with all that info... nothing, nada, no such animal, this book does not exist, even if you just search for parts of the name, like Heures Royales 1741, or even attempt something really desperate like searching for the title on the spine... we don't know really if this was book from 1741, but I have in my collection a Douceur with the same framing roulette, which was one of his favorites for a certain time... like this one a 1746 with the same platette (click here to see it). Or this one that is a 1739.


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Comparative Diagram 1 - resized and undistorted board


In Comparative Diagram 1, we see a computer generated virtual bookbinding. By using a strip of the roulette from my 1746 example I resized this binding vertically and horizontally, why? because I want to compare the tulips, and I wanted them reasonably accurate.


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Comparative Diagram 2 - Louis Douceur mosaic tulips vs 1741 mosaic examples


In Comparative Diagram 2, we see that these tulips should be the same, even though the sizes are not perfect i.e. one is a bit bigger than the other, due to having to estimate instead of having actual meaurement data. Now we need to search for more tulips like these...


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I found the reproduction above and thought this must be another Douceur tulipe BUT look closely it is not, the tulipe petals are curved at the top... even though the base looks identical, this means that there are clever copies out there, I found another in the British Library Database of Bookbindings.


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click here to see an INDEX of the 2017 pages.

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