French Book-plates. Walter Hamilton
at the top bears the arms of Melchior de la Vallée, not tinctured, supported by two angels, one of whom holds over the shield the hat of a protonotaire of the Court of Rome. Below, in an oval escutcheon, are the names and titles of the owner, supported on the left by the Virgin Mary carrying the infant Jesus, and on the right by St. Nicholas with three small children.
An account of this plate was furnished to the “Journal de la Société d’Archéologie Lorraine” (Nancy, 1864), by M. Beaupré, and Poulet-Malassis also mentions it, but at second-hand, as he had not seen it, and he gives the date incorrectly as 1611. It is not signed, but has been attributed to Jacques Callot and, with more probability, to Jacques Bellange.
There is a lapse of nearly forty years before we come to the next dated plate—André Felibien, Escuier, Sieur des Avaux, Historiographe du Roy, a fine armorial ex-libris, dated 1650.
Some excellent examples are known which prove that between 1574 and 1650 book-plates were engraved and coming into general use, but as they are not dated their age can only be approximately arrived at from internal evidence. Those French gentlemen of the fifteenth, sixteenth, and seventeenth centuries who loved books, and formed large libraries, adopted the Italian fashion of having their treasures sumptuously bound. The magnificently illuminated manuscripts, and livres d’heures, which were produced for the great lords and ladies in the fifteenth century, required no ex-libris, for on nearly every page occurred the arms or badges, the ciphers, or the initials of the fortunate owner, whose right to the book was thus for ever placed beyond all question or doubt. The invention of printing, and the consequent rapid multiplication of books, although it greatly interfered with the choice individuality of each impression, did not at once totally destroy it.
The early printers left blanks for initials and illuminations, which were afterwards filled in, freehand, by the artists who had hitherto been employed to illuminate the manuscripts, their services were thus in greater demand than ever. Most of the early printed books were heavy folios, and were sumptuously bound, the arms of the owners being grandly emblazoned in the centre of the side boards; generally with some cipher, flower, or monogram in the corners, and the monogram, or one of the principal charges of the shield, repeated between each band on the back. The present custom of ranging books closely in cases, with only their backs in view, was not suitable for these ponderous tomes. Some of the more ordinary works were placed loosely in open cases round the library, with their fore-edges towards the reader, but the valuable books were fully displayed on long tables or counters, of the right height for a reader to stand at and turn them over without fatigue. Thus the beauty of the binding was seen at once, and must have been so fearfully tantalizing to the visiting bibliomaniac, that the owners often thought it advisable to chain their volumes in their places. With these, as with the manuscripts, and for similar reasons, the use of ex-libris long appeared unnecessary, which accounts for their somewhat late adoption in France; the marks of ownership are on the bindings themselves, the lovely productions of the early masters of bibliopegy, whose elegance and style modern binders vainly attempt to imitate, and cannot excel.
To collect early bindings is a noble hobby, but one which is, and ever must remain, the hobby of a few wealthy collectors, whereas the collection of ex-libris was, until quite recently, a taste requiring patience and skill rather than a well-filled purse.
Styles and periods in French ex-libris are not nearly so well defined, nor so easily recognized, as they are in British plates by the simple terms we use, such as Early English, Jacobean, Chippendale, wreath and ribbon, book-pile, library interior, etc.
French military plates are often decorated with flags, cannon, and fine trophies of arms, but book-piles and library interiors are somewhat uncommon, as are also early plates containing the portraits of their owners.
One of the earliest portrait plates is that of Amy Lamy, with the motto “Usque ad aras,” probably engraved by some pupil of Thomas de Leu, of which the date is doubtful.
Another, and of greater interest, is that of the famous critic, the Abbé Desfontaines (1685–1745), a fine engraving by Schmit, after Tocqué, representing Petr. Fr. Guyot Desfontaines presb. Rothomag., with the following lines:
Dum te Phœbus amat scribentem, Mœvius odit,
Et lepidis salibus mæret inepta cohors.
Which a French admirer translates thus:
Chéri du dieu des arts, craint et haï des sots,
L’Ignorance en courroux frémit de ses bons mots.
On modern ex-libris portraits occasionally occur, as on that of M. Manet, with the punning phrase, “Manet et Manebit,” and that of a well-known English collector and scholar, Mr. H. S. Ashbee, designed by Paul Avril, a French artist. Another represents M. Georges Vicaire, in the costume of a chef, superintending the preparation of a ragout of books to please the literary gourmands. But probably the finest modern portrait ex-libris is that drawn by M. Henry André, the book-plate artist, for himself: this is dated 1894.
The collector must be on his guard against modern reprints from old plates, or ex-libris printed from re-engraved copper plates.
French collectors will commission engravers to copy rare old plates rather than be without examples of them in their albums; this they do openly and acknowledge frankly; but it is sometimes otherwise with the men whom they employ. They work off a number of copies for sale, mix them up with a parcel of genuine ex-libris, and so deceive the unwary collector.
The British collector will not find it easy to add much to his store in Paris, unless he is prepared to pay prices quite out of proportion to those usually charged for plates in this country.
In the first place, it is almost a waste of time to ask for ex-libris in any of the ordinary second-hand book shops; the books are all fairly well gleaned before reaching there, by individuals who collect the ex-libris for certain dealers who make a speciality of them. These dealers are not very numerous, they are all well known to the French collectors, and they have standing orders to reserve all their finest specimens for these regular customers. Consequently the stray passer-by, or the unfortunate foreigner, has little chance of picking up any but common or uninteresting plates.
In provincial towns there is, of course, less demand for plates, but a second-hand book shop in a French provincial town is usually a depressing place, and the books they have for sale seldom contain plates more interesting than a school or college-prize label. Yet these are occasionally very pretty little engravings, and the collector who prizes pictorial ex-libris would be glad to possess such a plate as that, for instance, designed by Apoux for the Institution Guillot, of Colombes (Seine).
The French take considerable interest in the historical, antiquarian, and literary associations of their country, and there are many enthusiastic collectors of ex-libris in France; it was therefore somewhat remarkable that a society of collectors was not formed at least as early in Paris as ours was in London. At length, however, the topic was broached by Dr. Louis Bouland in a letter published in “La Curiosité Universelle” (1, Rue Rameau, Paris) on March 14, 1892, No. 269, from which the following are extracts:
“In No. 266 of ‘La Curiosité Universelle’ I pointed out the advantages and pleasures to be derived from the formation of a Society of Collectors of Ex-Libris. I then mentioned that I should be pleased to correspond with collectors who might be willing to form the nucleus of such a society, and I have already received many promises of support.
“Those who have written to me are of the opinion, in which I concur, that the best way to arrive at a practical result would be to constitute a society to which each member should pay a subscription, the funds thus obtained being employed in printing and publishing a small independent journal.
“To achieve this result some one must take the initiative, write to the collectors, and call a preliminary meeting.
“I am quite willing to do this, and ask the support of all my brother collectors,