[SIGNED DEROME LE JEUNE BINDING]. Caracteres De Théophraste, Et Pensées Morales De Ménandre. Traduits Par M. Levesque

Paris: F.-A. Didot & G. Debure, 1782. Very good. 12mo. Contemporary Parisian crimson morocco by Derome le Jeune, triple gilt fillets around sides, small stars in the corners, flat spine with gilt ruled into six compartments, the second lettered direct, small stars in the others, board edges and turn-ins gilt, marbled endpapers, all edges gilt, green silk marker. A diminutive binding of austere elegance by Nicolas-Denis Derome "le Jeune" (signed with his ticket dated 1785, classified by Ract-Madoux as K3), the foremost bookbinder of his era. The design reflects the growing movement in the decorative arts towards the restrained, almost severe Neoclassical models of Greek and Roman antiquity, a reaction against the excesses of the Rococo style. The most successful Neoclassical Derome bindings are distinguished by their high quality leather and technically perfect execution -- as here.

In the (mis)attribution of eighteenth-century French bindings to N.-D. Derome le Jeune there will be no end, and even bindings bearing his ticket must automatically be suspected of bibliopegic malfeasance. Believing that the Derome ticket in the present binding had been transferred "post mortem," and thus had nothing to do with the binding in which it is contained, we faithfully purchased it to form part of our collection of "binding fakes." We were happily disappointed: this is actually a genuine Derome le Jeune binding.

The doublure is adorned with Barbier roll 98 (N.-D. Derome) which adorns 10 Derome bindings in Waddesdon Manor. Barbier describes it as a "double roll with eight-petalled daisy head within colonnade, a central rule, with alternating linked fleurs-de-lis and leaf ornament above." In the present binding, only the top half of the roll can be seen due to the narrow (5 mm) turn-in. The most famous appearance of this roll is on the Bodleian copy of the 42-Line ("Gutenberg") Bible, bound by Derome, with his ticket pasted on the first flyleaf opposite the flyleaf (see BOD-INC B-237). This roll is frequently described (but not illustrated) by Seymour de Ricci in his important catalogue of the Mortimer Schiff Collection.

Barbier gives a useful guide to Derome's neoclassical designs of the 1780s, referencing the sparsity of decoration on the covers; a frame of triple fillets and a rosette at their intersections; central area largely blank; spine usually flat but panels are lightly marked by thin lines around a generally thin flame pallet; plain dots feature on both covers and spines; spine panels have a small circular or other non-representational ornament; tail pallets often of interlaced ribbon or flame type; two particular turn-in rolls frequently found. The present binding conforms to all of the above.

NICOLAS-DENIS DEROME (CALLED "LE JEUNE") is easily the best known French bookbinder of the eighteenth century. He was born in Paris in 1731 and succeeded his father Jacques-Antoine upon the latter's death in 1760. He was the scion of a huge clan of Parisian bookbinders that flourished from the mid-seventeenth to the early-nineteenth century. He died in 1790 (not in 1788, as has often been given, for which see Ract-Madoux, p. 383).

PLACEMENT OF DEROME'S TICKET: Barbier (Waddesdon Manor, citing Ract-Madoux), states that Derome tickets were pasted not only on title-pages but on the verso of the fly-leaves (as here, facing the half-title); this practice can be found on several bindings published in Martin Breslauer catalogues and elsewhere. Barber ("From Baroque to Neoclassicism" describes 9 signed Derome bindings in the Bodleian, stating that the "usual placement" of Derome's ticket is in the top left corner of the blank leaf facing the title-page or the blank leaf facing first leaf of text (e.g. a half-title, as here):
No. 19: "Derome's ticket is in the usual place, top left of the verso of the flyleaf facing the title-page";
No. 20: "in the usual place";
No. 31 (a 13th-century MS on vellum) on the verso of the first vellum leaf, top left facing the start of the text;
No. 32: at the center foot of the first page;
No. 33 (42-Line "Gutenberg" Bible) in the usual place;
No. 34 in the usual place;
No. 35 in the usual place;
No. 36 in the usual place;
No. 37: top left verso of second flyleaf.

PROVENANCE: Armorial bookplate of "M[onsieu]r. Dubois" who has resisted identification; the arms are emblazoned: a phare enflammé (an enflamed beacon), consisting of a pole with fire-brisket at the top, at its base a declined ladder for those who feed the fire, above which are three mullets (or molets) being five-pointed spur-rowels (technically not stars), the whole surmounted by the crown of a Marquis --> Charles Walker Andrews (1861-1946), member of the Grolier Club and noted collector of fine books and bindings, with his pictorial bookplate and motto Cum Granis Salis ("With a Grain of Salt"). Andrews was an attorney in Syracuse, NY. Presumably in his hand is written on the first blank page: "Bought in Paris Oct. 1906."

¶ Ract-Madoux, "Essai de classement chronologique des étiquettes de Derome le Jeune," in: Bulletin du Bibliophile (1989) pp. 382-91. Giles Barbier, The James A. de Rothschild Bequest at Waddesdon Manor (2013), vol. I p. 454. Barber, "From Baroque to Neoclassicism" in: Bookbindings & other bibliophily: Essays in honour of Anthony Hobson (1994). Foot, Davis Gift Hoffmann, Greek III, 535.