Browse Items (259 total)

The motif used here is an example of marbled paper with a small comb. The comb consists of a wooden stick with small metal spikes inserted into it. The smallness of the comb makes it possible to make turnstiles, which gives this particular…

The paper that makes up the cover for this little French comedy of the 17th century has been created with a technique new for this era: hand block printed paper, termed “dominoté” in French. The motif used here has been printed and then the colours…

Here we have yet another example of hand printblock paper. However, in contrast to the previous example, this is a relatively recent paper, a product of a highly mechanized process. We can see the regularity of the design and the uniformity of the…

This is an example of paste paper, most specifically one generated with the “pull “(i.e. “pull-paper”) technique. A mixture of glue and colour pigments are applied with a brush to two sheets of paper that are imposed upon each other. Before the glue…

The page on display, the reverse side of an engraved portrait of the author, Andrew Marvell, offers a wonderfully clear and visible example of the watermark embedded into the paper. Watermarks were designs woven into the mould used by papermakers to…

This example shows the “mottled” style of marbling, attempting to reproduce the effect of natural stone, here in a spectacular combination of blue tones. The edges have been gilded and are in remarkable shape.

Aldus Manutius (1449-1515), active in Venice, was an Italian printer, credited for the invention of Italic type, as well as “pocket” format books (chiefly the octavo, which was easily portable, in contrast to the very large formats popular at the…

This work displays the printer’s device of Simon de Colines. De Colines (ca. 1475-1546) was active in Paris from about 1520 until his death in 1546. De Colines had actually collaborated with printer Henri Estienne (1528-1598), continuing printing…

Elsevier, perhaps the most well-known name in electronic publishing today, takes it name from the much earlier and, perhaps, comparably successful Dutch printing house. It is renowned for its meticulous printing and a series of duodecimal format…

Sebastian Gryphius (1492-1556) was a German printer (born Greif, in Reutlingen), although he would establish himself in Lyon, France for the bulk of his career. Chiefly printing the works of classical Latin authors, Gyphius published the works of…