These two bindings were made by Nicolas-Denis Derome around 1787. The Derome family was a family of binders working in Paris from the middle of the 17th century until the first quarter of the 19th century. The best-known members of this family were Jacques-Antoine Derome and his youngest son, Nicolas-Denis. Jacques-Antoine was born about 1696 and became a master binder in 1718. He lived in Rue Saint-Jacques and died there in 1760. He left two daughters and three sons: Charles, Nicolas and Nicolas-Denis, all three of them binders. Charles became master in 1740 and lived in Rue Saint- Jacques; Nicolas became master in 1748, married a daughter of the binder Bradel, and lived in Rue des Chiens; Nicolas-Denis was born in 1731. He also married a Mademoiselle Bradel and became master binder in 1761, though he called himself his father’s successor from 1760. According to his various tickets and trade cards, he lived first at his father’s address and then some years after his father’s death moved to elsewhere in Rue Saint-Jacques: “Près le Plessis”. According to Pascal Ract- Madoux,¹ this move took place in 1785 and indeed one of his later tickets states that he lived in Rue Saint-Jacques, près le Collége du Plessis, no. 65, in 1785. Either the two volumes of the Recueil de paintures antiques were bound with at least a two-year interval, or Nicolas- Denis used up an old stock of tickets when he signed vol. I. The output of his atelier was considerable and he may have had several finishers working for him. He used two variants of the bird tool, one facing left (in two sizes), the other facing right. He died on 28 February 1790 and was succeeded by his widow, assisted by Alexis-Pierre Bradel, her nephew by marriage. 

Mirjam Foot 

¹ Ract-Madoux 1989, pp. 383-391. The ticket on volume I of the binding described here is closest to his plate E2, dated c. 1780-85.