This binding was made in Paris and designed by Paul Bonet in 1958. This is the twenty-first binding that Paul Bonet designed for this book. In all, between 1941 and 1969, he designed the bindings for twenty-eight copies, many with the lion’s mask, carried out in slight variations with and without small stars, with more or fewer gold lines and with the onlays in differently deployed colours. Bonet did not bind the books himself, but used a number of forwarders and finishers. This copy was bound by René Desmules and finished (decorated and tooled) by Robert Cochet. A very similar design on the same book is in the Wormsley Library.¹ 

Paul Bonet was born in Paris in 1889 to Belgian parents. His father was a cabinetmaker. Paul was apprenticed to an electrician, but being more interested in art and design, first became a dress designer and then later started to design bookbindings. He joined the army in 1914, but was wounded and demobilised. He designed his first binding in 1920, but did not become a professional until 1925. Early on he was inspired by Pierre Legrain, but he moved away from Legrain’s influence and by 1930 had established himself as a leading designer of bookbindings, using new techniques and materials, such as sculpted or moulded and pierced leather, inlays as well as onlays, tooling in gold, blind, palladium or aluminium, using metal and ivory. He employed various craftsmen to carry out his designs, demanding technical virtuosity and precision. He had the ability to interpret the same book in different ways, but also used the same design a number of times, claiming that his designs were not so much connected to the text and believing that variations on the same theme therefore did not make the results dull. He was a remarkably versatile designer, experimenting with every artistic style of the 20th century. The examples in the Cerruti Collection show this variety in its circular designs, effected in a mosaic of onlays for G. d’Houville, La diadème de Flore, Paris 1928 (see no. 81, p. 351), or achieved with tiny round inlays and gold tooling on the 13-volume set of M. Proust, A La recherche du temps perdu, Paris 1919 (see cat. p. 308).² A completely different effect was created with elliptical onlays in a harmony of grey and white with small touches of colour on Henri de Montherlant, Mors et Vita, Paris, 1932 (see no. 88, p. 353).³ Paul Bonet’s bindings were exhibited widely in Europe and the USA. He died on 3 March 1971. 

Mirjam Foot 

¹ B. D. Maggs, in New York 1999, no. 101. See also Bonet 1981. The Wormsley copy is no. 1164, which was finished by Charles Collet; the copy described here is no. 1165. Yet another variant was illustrated in Paris 1995, no. 53.

² Respectively Bonet 1981, no. 86: bound by M. Trinckvel; finished by A. Jeanne (1929) and nos. 962- 974: bound by R. Desmules; finished by R. Cochet (1951).

³ Bonet 1981, nos. 1590-1591 (2 copies): bound by R. Desmules; finished by G. Raphaël (1967).