| The binding shown above is found in the Christies auction catalogue COLLECTION MICHEL WITTOCK 2EME PARTIE, RELIURES A DECOR 8 November 2004, Paris, lot 234. This doublure is found in Esmerian's 1972, Vol. II No. 51 and like many I was lured into thinking that this was a binding by Boyet, as indeed the Christies experts claim. However we have been looking at Boyet's all over bindings in the last few pages, these bindings are all linked together by common tools, however in this case we see what look to be a few Boyet tools and we are going to look at these very carefully. If they only look like Boyet tools if they only copy Boyet tools then this elaborately decorated doublure was not produced by Boyet's workshop. |
| In Comparative Diagram 1, we see an imprint from the 234 Terance doublure compared with a Boyet imprint lab-3, from Davis473. This binding is very small and the imprints also tiny. You can only see the details of the imprints by greatly enlarging them, fortunately we have fairly good image quality for both imprints and the individual pointille beads can even be counted. However the differences here are so obvious we need not count beads, the stem of the Davis473 example peters out into a solid narrow band, where as the 234 example shows many well formed beads along the stem right to the bottom. Also the Davis473 terminates here at the bottom of the stem in a rather bulbous protrusion that is not evident in the 234 example. Thus we have a conundrum, would Boyet have two nearly identical examples of this tool? |
| The next thing about this 234 Doublure that gives it a Boyet look is the branches, these look like Boyet branches but are they? In Comparative Diagram 2, I show two real examples of Boyet branches, the first is the British library example C8i9 that we have examined on another page, and the other is from Boyet binding 49 Reliure au petit W Isabelle de Conihout et P. Ract-Madoux, Reliures françaises du XVIIe siècle, chefs-d'oeuvre du Musée Condé 2002, pages 108-109. This is the last Boyet binding they show and give a date of 1707 to 1710 for this Group 10, i.e. bindings from the last half of Boyet's career. |
| In Comparative Diagram 3, we are looking at the begining of the stem/branch lab-b-5a, and we see that the first few leafs that appear on this stem are of a very different arrangement, the 234 examples look almost orderly while the Boyet examples are rather out of order. These stems should not be different at all. This is another sign that this is not a Boyet, unless he had a lot of different branch tools that we have not seen up until now. |
| Now magically I find the very thing I needed, another binding with the same tools that were used on the 234 doublure. This reproduction comes from a Librairie Clavreuil catalogue in pdf form, the reproduction is not as good as it might be however I found this same binding in another auction catalogue, with a somewhat better reproduction, but first lets look at the information about this book. I show it below and it is filled with the usual Luc-Antoine Boyet story that goes back to Isabelle de Conihout et P. Ract-Madoux, Reliures françaises du XVIIe siècle, chefs-d'oeuvre du Musée Condé 2002, and in particular points out their binding number 38 with doublure. |
| I show the number 38 doublure below along with the text, in which there is no mention of Duvivier, and when you look closely you will notice that the Histoire Secrete doublure has only been made to look like the Boyet, on closer examinination it is not the same. Esmerian also showed a very similar binding in his 1972 Vol. II No. 59 with a Boyet doublure. I show below in Comparative Diagram 4, details from a section of each doublure, greatly enlarged. It is easy to see the difference even if the Histoire Secrete example is low res. |
| In Comparative Diagram 5 we can see that these are the same imprints found on the 234 Terence shown at the top of the page and this Histoire Secrete example, the same imprints, but not Boyet imprints. Probably the strongest proof that these are not Boyet bindings, is the lack of decoration in the area of the spine panels. We can see this below, the panels framed with a single wide filet, nothing at the top of the spine!... and of course only look alike fleurons in the centers... no, this is not a Boyet. |
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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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