| This Louis Douceur binding arrived on eBay in January 2020, the seller provided a good scanned image of the covers but very little information (that which is shown above only). The binding is not overtly a Douceur in fact I had to jog my memory a bit to think of who the binder might be. In any case I managed to scoop it up at a bargain price, and later remembered where I saw these imprints before, it was on one of my pages from a few years ago where I went to lengths to show that these imprints were those of Louis Douceur (click here to see this page) |
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In Comparative Diagram 1, we can see that these same imprints are found on a binding that was sold at a 2014 Sotheby's auction (click here to see it). The Sotheby's experts claimed that this binding can be attributed to Padeloup... why?... because the previous owner and renowned bibliophile Robert Hoe,
said so. This item sold for 5.250 euros. If you pay 5 thousand euros for a book that they say was bound by Padeloup and it turns out to have not been bound and decorated by Padeloup, do you get your money back? A very good reproduction of an identical binding is found in La bibliothèque de feu Édouard Rahir Troisième partie : Livres illustrés du XVIIIe siècle : Riches reliures anciennes III (7-9 May 1935): vi, 60 (2) pp., colour frontispiece, [32] leaves of plates (some in colour, some double-page). Lots numbered 706-94. Below I show the catalogue information for this item, surprisingly little information, and no mention of Padeloup. On a previous page I said that the Sotheb'ys example was the same as Rahir's 923, they really look identical, however now that I have found at last the Rahir catalogue information, I discover that these are two different sets of bindings. Both possibly made around the same time of 1751 and pointing to the strong probablility that this eBay example was also made around that time. |
| In Comparative Diagram 2, I compare with overlay diagrams the Douceur imprint pair that I have now catalogued as d-46a-3 and d-46b-3. We are going to be able to add more tools to the Douceur catalogue from these bindings that are all so remarkably similar and lead into the bindings that Douceur began making around 1754, classic Douceur of outstanding quality. |
| In Comparative Diagram 3, we see another remarkably similar binding that is found on a web site called Expertissim, this binding is found on L'office de la Semaine Sainte, en latin et en françois, selon le missel et le bréviaire romain, & le nouveau Missel & Bréviaire de Paris... A l'usage de Madame la Dauphine, & de sa Maison. Paris, Jean-Baptiste Garnier, 1752. (click here to see it). Expertissim offers many high quality images of their items and fortunely this 1752 Semaine Sainte has even more Douceur imprints that we can easily recognize. With the scans of 1200dpi we will be able to show the details within the imprints like never before, details that will ensure the identification of Louis Douceur's tools at the highest level of confidence. No longer will he be thrown into Padeloup's box along with Dubuisson et al. |
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click here to return to the HOME page. click here to see an INDEX of the 2017 pages. see below links to previous work |
| 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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