| The fanfare binding shown above is from the Gumuchian catalogue, Belles Reliures. Catalogue XII. Catalogue de Reliures du XVe au XIXe siècle en vente à la Librairie Gumuchian & Cie, Paris, Gumuchian & Cie. 1929. if you dan't have this catalogue you are really missing one of the best ever made, the reproductions are exceptionally well done, as the scan above shows. While I was searching for bindings with tools that matched the unnamed atelier covered in the last few pages, it dawned on me that the tools on this binding looked very much like those tools, except that these were of a better quality. After some reflection and a lot of comparative research, it struck me that the unnamed atelier appeared to have copied the tools and style of the atelier that made this binding. |
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First lets look at the all important bud bee, I can imagine how one is a copy, not an actual copy but an approximate copy, as though you went to a tool maker and said, while waving your arms as a way of explaining, I want something that looks like this... Compared to the eBay copy this 124 example is a super bud bee. I followed the same plan as before, searching for exact copies of this super bee, and again they were sparce but the bindings on which they were found carried such a great range of tools you knew that you would have a better chance of following this atelier even if they stopped using the bee. |
| Almost every fanfare binding from this period make use of a spiral or volute that is centered around a leaf form fleuron. Here there is a signifcant difference in the central leaf fleuron. These hatched tools probably copy tools from the prefanfare period mid 16c. The i24 examples are always accompanied with a additional leaf fleuron placed in the outer whorl. Indicated by the green arrow in Comparative Diagram 2. |
| These oval centers are common however the strapwork centers with a small four petaled fleuron seems rather to similar to be accidental. Everything about this image the gold dots the bits of spiral linked with small barely decernable buds looks suspiciously like copying. |
| Altogether these details seem to confirm a strong case of copying, however we need not get bogged down in this idea. I want to proceed on the next page looking at another binding with the same tools as binding 124, here there are some interesting additional tools. |
| click on this link to see the next page: Rahir fanfare No. 92 |
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