| The bindings shown above are found in the Librairie Sourget catelogue XVI 1997 , page 245-247, No. 104. Click here to see the full Sourget description of this set of books. Here we have a unique opportunity to observe the tools that Delorme employed over this period and the changes in his selection of tools that may also have some chronological implications. |
| In Comparative Diagrams 2 and 3, I have extracted and catalogued nearly all the of the important imprints for the years 1764 to 1766, There are some small imprints in 1763 that are not in the later years, my first focus is to try to identify the imprint pairs pd-36 and del-36. |
| Comparative Diagram 4, shows the certain presence of imprint del-36b-2 in the 1766 binding, where I have taken a del-36b-2 sample and placed it over the 1766 imprint after inverting the color and reducing the transparency to 50%. We can see that the outline from the 1766 imprint below matches very well that of del-36b-2. However the same experiment in Comparative Diagram 5 shows that the pd-36b does not match the 1766 example. The shoulders of the 1766 imprint are higher and wider. It is easy to see this in these diagrams however without the diagrams it is difficult to draw any conclusions. Scroll back to Comparative Diagram 1, to test this for yourself. I have found the del-36b-2 imprint in the decoration of a 1764 Breviarium and the question is whether or not this imprint, that is distinctly different from the Dubuission model of the same type, was in use before 1764. Here at least we have evidence that it was in use in 1766. |
| The next imprint that strikes me as being an important Delorme signature tool, is shown in Comparative Diagram 6, it appears in the Choiseul bindings starting in 1765, and I have another example on a 1764 Breviarium, however looking closely at these examples, particularly example 'A' where we see additional detail even though this is a poor reproduction, it suggests that, this is an early example and that the 1764 example where we see much less detail, may be much older. If this is the case, then this could even be a Dubuisson tool that I somehow never recorded... this to me, seems doubtful, that I could miss something so striking. |
| In Comparative Diagram 7, we see that Gosselin was using this type of tool some years later and Jubert even later. It will be interesting to know if Gosselin and Jubert were following the work of Delorme, or why would they have such similar looking 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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