| This binding is found in a 2004 Christies auction, SALE 5071, COLLECTION MICHEL WITTOCK 2EME PARTIE, RELIURES A DECOR, Paris 8 November 2004 (click here to see it) Signed bindings are always rare and worth exporing, and this case is no exception. I decided to check Leon Gruel first and found some interesting details about Antoine Durand. |
| According to Gruel and the document that he reproduces in facsimle Durand worked for the Municipality of Paris and in a 17 month period (14/02/1767 to 20/06/1768) produced 557 bindings (thats more than 1 per day working non-stop) this recept is dated 11th of April 1767 and he started on the 14th of February so we can imagine that he made about 50 bindings in that time for the sum of 115 livres. The average yearly wage of a skilled worker was probably around 600 livres per year, so if he was getting 115 livres every couple of months this fits the equasion quite well. Gruel notes that he must have been a good binder to be hired for this job. It was only on the 21st of October 1765 that he received his masters papers and a few short months later he was lined up to work full time on what must have seemed a large amount of work. In the information given by the Christies experts Durand was named binder official of the Royal Library as well as binder for the city of Paris, he went on to become the official binder of the comte de Artois and the duc d'Angoulême "le relieur du comte d'Artois (en 1772) et du duc d'Angoulême (de 1781 à 1783)" This signifies that he was a busy and successful binder who also moved in Royal circles and yet if you try to find even just his name in the catalogues of the Bibliotheque nationale de France you will be disappointed, apparently they have never even heard of him... strange no? Admittedly bindings by Antoine Durand are not easy to find, however after an extensive search I did find another one. |
| The reproduction shown above can be found in the online catalogue of La librairie Laurent Coulet (click here to see it) this catalogue is in a pdf file and I have not been able to find an actual hard copy of it. Laurent Coulet replied to my email about this catalogue saying they were all out of it, so we have to work with what we have which is very limited, however we can see in Comparative Diagram 2, that the same essential tools were used in both of these bindings, below I have extracted some of these tools which will serve as a start to our study of the work of Antoine Durand. |
| In Comparative Diagram 3 we discover that Barber's FR 27 models are nearly identical to the Durand imprints, even to the point where one of the pair is smaller, however our Durand example is too low res to be able to make any real comparisons while Barber's examples appear also less than perfect. The point of this exercise is however to point out that Durand had three sizes of this tool and that his might have been the earliest being pre 70's. This is an important tool that was copied by a number of binders. This was definitely a trend setter tool, it became very popular as did the style of the dentelles that incorporated and or made extensive use of it. Almost like an invasive species it took over and dominated by the 80's the old style dentelles of the 50 and 60's. Who invented this tool? and when was it first used would make an interesting study. |
| In Comparative Diagram 4, I show some examples of these imprints, Barber shows 2 examples in his tool catalogue FR 27 and FR 28, René-François Fétil had two tools of this type the smallest is certainly Barber's FR 28, Jubert had only two and as he did not begin his career until the early 70's his tools have to be later than those Antoine Durand. These tools follow a very distinct design pattern and retain the same elements, almost as though the fashion itself dictated that they should be so formed. |
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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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