Today’s item has some beautiful examples of marbled paper, showing how many different designs are possible, including examples of waves, flowers, even calligraphy! It also includes a short history of marbling, particularly in the Middle East and Germany.
Binding: Bound in full green morocco with envelope flap, gilt floral decoration on both covers, marbled end papers.
Includes 10 tipped in specimens of marbled paper. The 10 designs are Suminagashi, stone, fantasy, heart, hatip, blossom, calligraphy, art nouveau, and waves.
“Printed at Druckerei Muller + Bass, Tübingen. Hand bound by Maren Mau-Pieper, Tübingen. Marbled specimens by Nedim Sönmez.” –Colophon. Library has deluxe copy no. 31, signed by author. –Catalog
Laid paper, an earlier method of papermaking, would have been made with a deckle that had thicker vertical wires that impressed upon the soft, drying pulp “chain lines.” Bibliographers and book workers use those chain lines to determine a book’s format, or the relationship between a sheet of paper and the arrangement of its leaves. Wove paper is closer to what is made in the above video, wherein the deckle’s wires were woven into a dense metal mesh that left less dramatic and identifiable impressions. Otherwise, the two modes of papermaking (the vat, the mold, laying the paper on felt-a process called “couching,” pronounced “coo-ching”) is pretty much the same.
If you want another look at a larger-scale papermaking operation, in 2016, the Center for the Book at the University of Iowa challenged themselves to make 2000 sheets of paper in a single 10-hour day, which was the upper limit of a papermaker’s output at the height of the handmade paper period.
