Louis Piette (1803-1862), Die Fabrikation des Papieres aus Stroh und vielen andern Substanzen: im Grossen nach zahlreichen Versuchen beschrieben und mit 160 Mustern von verschiedenen Papiersorten beweisen: nebst einer Beschreibung der neuesten Erfindungen in der Papierfabrikation, für Fabrikanten und alle Freunde der Forschritte in Cultur und Industrie (Cologne: Dümont-Schauberg, 1838). Graphic Arts Collection GAX 2018- in process

The Graphic Arts Collection has a number of early sources on papermaking, often with paper samples tipped in. This volume, recently acquired, is not the earliest but certainly is one of the rarest of all papermaking books, with 25 more samples than most other recorded copies (ok, yes, the copy at the University of Amsterdam apparently has 192 samples but who’s counting).

The papers are chiefly from various kinds of straw (rye, wheat, barley, oats, peas, beans, lentils, and corn), singly or in combination; some mixed with hay and/or rags; and some bleached or colored. There are also five samples of cardboard made from straw and other fibers and ten non-straw papers (hay, oakum, wood, linden bark; some with rags).

In 1827, Louis Piette, a native of Belgium, took over the paper making factory started by his father in Dillingen and performed many experiments using different materials to produce various suitable kinds of paper, operating the mill from 1819 to 1854.  Note in particular leaves 203-33 are themselves made of various straw papers.

“Louis Piette followed in the footsteps of noted papermaking researchers of the 18th century…These early attempts, however, were not as successful as the finished papers made by Louis Piette. The significance of Piette’s investigations is very simple: his papers made from straw remain clean and almost as pliable as comparable papers made from rag…Piette’s papers, moreover, really are straw papers, without mixing in small amounts of flax fibers. Piette’s experiments showed a great understanding of papermaking from a production standpoint, and, with the increase use of the fourdrinier machine, his work led directly into the use of esparto grass prior to the discovery of chemical bleaching for soft- and hardwood paper manufacture…By the 1860‘s, the age of modern machine papermaking was at hand, and Piette’s earlier papermaking experiment showed how well he understood the future of papermaking.“–The Paper Trail. Quarterly Newsletter of the Robert C. Williams American Museum of Papermaking (Vol. 2, Nos. 1 & 2, January- March & April-June 2004). In these two articles the author states there are only four known copies of this book.

Of particular importance in this volume, found on pages 246-91 is the second printing of Moritz Illig’s Anleitung auf eine sichere, einfache und wohlfeile Art Papier in der Masses zu leimen (first edition 1806). According to Leonard Schlosser’s 1971exhibition catalogue, only two copies are known of the first edition. This text describes Illig’s “momentous” (Schlosser) invention of rosin-alum sizing. The addition of this mixture aided in making the paper take writing ink with less necessity for sizing with glue, as had been the vogue for five hundred years. It provided a simple, sure method for sizing paper more rapidly with non-putrescible materials. Illig’s book was literally consumed in use and only two copies are known.–Special thanks to Yoshi Hill for his research on this volume.

Some of the other early papermaking sources in the Graphic Arts Collection include:

Papeterie: contenant quatorze planches, dont une double ([A Paris: Chez Briasson … David … Le Breton …, 1767]. Graphic Arts Collection Oversize 2011-0013F

Louis-Charles Desnos (1725-1805), Dissertation historique sur l’invention des lettres, ou caracteres d’écriture: sur les instrumens dont les anciens se sont servi pour écrire; & sur les matières qu’ils ont employées: suivie d’une Instruction raisonnée sur le papier nouveau que le sieur Desnos annonce au public: & dont on trouvera à la fin une suite de feuillets pour écrire & dessiner dans tel genre que ce soit avec un stylet ou pointe d’un métal composé pour cet usage (Paris: Chez Desnos, ingénieur-géographe & libraire de Sa Majesté danoise … , 1771). The 52 blank leaves at end are samples of Denos’ paper, intended for use as a notebook; cf. p. 3 (2nd group). Graphic Arts Collection 2009-0605N

Charles-Michel, marquis de, Villette (1736-1793), Œuvres du marquis de Villette (Londres. [i.e. Langlée, France: P. A. Léorier Delisle], M. DCC. LXXXVI. [1786]). “Ce volume est imprimé sur le papier d’écorce de tilleul.”–Verso of half title. Based on the 18mo format, the sheet size is ca. 48 x 36 cm. (crown), though Hunter reported his copy as 16 x 10 cm. (thus ca. 60 x 48 cm, royal, calculated from the same format). Issued also on rose-colored paper and on paper made from marshmallow. Includes 20 sample leaves of Léorier Delisle’s experimental paper made from various plant materials: marshmallow, nettles, hops, moss, reeds, conferva (3 kinds), burdock, burdock-colt’s foot, and thistles; quack-grass root; hazel wood and spindle wood; and bark of willow, spindle tree, oak, poplar, osier and elm. Each leaf includes printed identification of the material used: papier de guimauve, d’ortie, de houblon, de mousse, de roseaux, de conferva (première / seconde / troisième espèce), de racines de chiendent, de bois de coudrier, de bois de fusain, d’écorce de fusain avec son épiderme ou croûte, d’écorce de chéne, d’écorce de peuplier, d’écorce d’osier, d’écorce d’orme, d’écorce de saule, de bardanne, de bardanne et de pas-d’ane, de chardons. Graphic Arts Collection 2004-0061S

Matthias Koops, Historical account of the substances which have been used to describe events, and to convey ideas, from the earliest date to the invention of paper (London: Printed by T. Burton …, 1800). “Printed on the first useful paper manufactured soley [sic] from straw.” Appendix (p. [85]-91) printed on “paper made from wood alone … without any intermixture of rags, waste paper, bark, straw, or any other vegetable substance.” Laid in: sample blank folded sheet of straw paper, 35 x 43 cm. folded to 18 x 12 cm. Watermark: “Neckinger Mill.” Graphic Arts Collection Oversize TS1090 .K66q

The Sister arts, or, A concise and interesting view of the nature and history of paper-making, printing, and bookbinding: being designed to unite entertainment with information concerning those arts, with which the cause of literature is peculiarly connected: embellished with three engravings ([Lewes]: Sussex Press, Lewes: Printed and published by J. Baxter, and sold by the principal booksellers in London, 1809). GAX copy: From the library of P. J. Conkwright. Graphic Arts Collection 2003-0052N

Peter Thomas, The Tuckenhay Mill: People and Paper (Santa Cruz: Peter and Donna Thomas, 2016). Housed in clamshell box. Graphic Arts Collection GAX in process.

All copies have: Introductory pamphlet, letterpress printed, 1.They Made the Paper in Tuckenhay Mill, interviews with retired hand paper makers, a 100-page digitally printed book with the text of the interviews; 2.Flash drive with audio files, transcriptions and videos from original interviews; 3.Vintage handmade paper samples and printed ephemera from Tuckenhay Mill. Princeton’s copy has an additional pamphlet titled Handmade Paper in Tuckenhay Devon, pamphlet titled Three Hundred Years of Paper Making, and 22 paper samples with additional booklets.

In the 1830s, Richard Turner started manufacturing paper by hand in the Tuckenhay Mill, and paper was continuously made by hand there until 1962. From then until 1970, the Mill produced pulp (half-stuff) until the business went bankrupt. The equipment was scrapped and the building was sold and converted into vacation cottages, remaining so today.

A self-taught hand papermaker, Peter Thomas became interested in knowing how apprentice-trained hand papermakers working in production hand papermills made paper. He especially wanted to learn the “vatman’s shake,” the series of motions that papermakers used to form their sheets of paper. This desire circuitously led him and Donna to Tuckenhay, near Totnes, Devon, in England, where beginning in 1988, they recorded several hand papermakers, returning to make others in 1990 and 1994.

—  http://www.thelegacypress.com/tuckenhay-mill.html

The study of paper is not virtual. You hold it in your hand and feel the weigh of the sheet. You bend it to see which direction the paper fibers are running. You place it over a light and search for a watermark, then shine the light at an angle to see the texture of the surface. Are there chain lines? How big was the sheet originally and how many times was it cut to make the present page?

It is an intimate investigation best learned with paper samples that have already been identified and documented and yet, finding such rare samples is, of course, difficult.

Among the earliest encyclopedic gatherings of different types of paper is Richard Herring’s A Practical Guide to the Varieties & Relative Values of Paper, first published in London in 1860. The Graphic Arts Collection now owns a copy of this very rare volume.

Herring’s Guide was and is the most comprehensive published paper specimen book issued in the nineteenth century up to 1860. Herring calls for 246 samples but the copy recently acquired by Princeton has 244. Copies in the British Library and St. Bride’s Library each have only 242 samples. Undoubtedly, these volumes were each unique, hand bound treasures.

“The object of this work,” writes Herring, “is to furnish similar assistance to the stationer to that which afforded to the bookseller by the London catalogue. It is so arranged that by a very simple mode of reference to two hundred and forty-six samples of paper, which are appended to the work, no fewer than six hundred and eighty-one distinct kinds, with the relative prices of each affixed, are represented . . . Nearly every variety of paper, with its characteristic technicalities, dimensions, and weight, has been accurately given . . . .” –preface.

Antiquarian Charles Wood III writes, “The range and variety of papers is astonishing and endlessly fascinating; there are writing papers, printing papers, cartridge papers, wove papers, filtering paper, drawing papers, glazed boards, milled boards, etc. etc. The author was a in a unique position to produce this work; he was stock-taker to Her Majesty’s Stationery Office.”

Here is one of the original advertisements in Bookseller: The Organ of the Book Trade and Many Other Trade Publications, in which Herring wrote:

A Practical Guide to the Varieties and Relative Values of Paper by Richard Herring, in a convenient quarto Guinea volume. Prefixed is a very able history of the Art of Paper Making, full of interesting facts this had previously been contributed by the author to the new edition of Lire’s Dictionary. Next, we have a list of the Varieties and Relative Values of Paper with the sizes of every description and the prices per ream, all the references being to actual specimens of paper contained in the latter portion of the volume. The samples embrace nearly every kind of paper made, together with some of glazed and milled and bag-cap boards. The work, altogether, is so useful that we have little doubt a large number of Stationers will be glad to avail themselves of it.—Bookseller. [The Maker’s price for each sort, including the duty of three halfpence per pound, was exactly two-thirds of the price quoted in this list when the Paper Duty was repealed.—R.H.]

Richard Herring (born 1829), A Practical Guide to the Varieties and Relative Values of Paper: Illustrated with Samples of Nearly Every Description and Specially Adapted to the Use of Merchants, Shippers, and the Trade: To Which Is Added, a History of the Art of Paper Making (London: Longman, Green, Longman, and Roberts, 1860). Graphic Arts Collection GAX 2017- in process.

Thank you to everyone who helped make this acquisition possible.

Bookplates inside front cover:

See also Herring’s earlier catalogue with only 25 samples, from the collection of Elmer Adler:
Richard Herring (1829-18 ), Paper & Paper Making, Ancient and Modern; with an Introduction by the Rev. George Croly (London: Longman, Brown, Green, and Longmans, 1855). xvi, 125, 24 p., [5], 25 leaves of plates (2 folded) : ill., 25 samples (some col.); 23 cm. “Founded upon lectures recently delivered at the London Institution”–Preface. Samples comprise 8 sheets with watermarks (3 line, 3 light and shade, 2 impressed), 5 of writing paper (2 laid, 3 wove), 4 of wrapping paper, 2 of paper made from 80% straw and 20% rope, 1 made almost entirely from wheat straw, 1 of printing paper and 1 sample each of water leaf, unsized, sized and glazed paper. Graphic Arts Collection (GAX) TS1090 .H477 1855