The Graphic Arts Collection recently acquired a rare trade catalogue from the Scottish firm Bertram, presenting their entire line of papermaking machinery. Note below the watermark printed on each plate so that people can’t steal and reproduce their images.

 

Happily the Capital Collections site for Edinburgh Libraries and Museums recently posted the history of this important manufacturer and the quote here is a portion of their text:

Bertram Limited, Sciennes was founded in 1821 in Edinburgh and developed into a major manufacturer of papermaking machinery. The firm was founded by George and William Bertram, who came from a family which had been involved in papermaking in Midlothian for generations.

After spending about twenty years in Dartford, Kent learning their craft as papermaking machinery engineers, the brothers returned to Edinburgh to set up their own business, a workshop erected near Sciennes, with a few machines and a small forge. The company moved to new, larger premises around 1859, on the site which it was to occupy for over a century. Another engineering company James Bertram & Son was set up in Leith Walk, by a younger brother in 1845.

In 1860 William Bertram retired after 40 years in the business. He died the same year. George continued to supply not only papermaking machines but other machinery used in the paper making process, including steam engines. David, George’s son took over the business from his father. He was the last of the direct line of Bertrams. When he died in 1907, the family name disappeared from the board.

 

Need some paper? Why go to Office Depot when you can make it yourself? That’s what our good friend Allen Scheuch, Class of 1976, did.

Two years after he graduated from Princeton University, Scheuch decided to learn to make paper. The class he attended followed Dard Hunter’s book, Papermaking: the History and Technique of an Ancient Craft (New York: Knopf, 1943). Graphic Arts Collection (GAX) TS1090 .H816 1943.

A 24 x 32 inch paper mould was fashioned from varnished mahogany, with a bronze screen, simple brass (kitchen cabinet) handles, an inlaid brass rod on one side for reinforcement, and an “S” (for Scheuch) in a circle for the watermark.

100% linen rag was torn and beaten into a milk-like soup. For each sheet, Scheuch dipped the mould into the mixture and let the water drain. The top “deckle” finished the sides of the paper before the damp sheet was transferred to a felt where it would dry.

“I used one or two pieces but that was all!” Scheuch told me. “I liked the texture and the deckle but could never bring myself to use it casually – it meant too much to me! – and never ended up using it in a special project. So this will be its special project – as a teaching aide in Princeton’s Graphic Arts Department; I can’t imagine a finer one!”

Even better, this winter Scheuch’s mould and some of his paper will find their way into the Princeton University Art Museum as an educational element for the upcoming extravaganza: 500 Years of Italian Master Drawings from the Princeton University Art Museum, opening January 25, 2014.

Our sincere thanks to Mr. Scheuch!

 

       

In celebrating the bibliophile and historian Theodor Goebel’s 70^th year as a printer, The Inland Printer referred to him as the Nestor of typography in Germany. Bigmore and Wyman, vol. 1, describes Goebel as “one of the most earnest and accomplished among German students of the history and antiquities of printing. In addition to this, he is a sound practical printer”

The author of several distinguished volumes, Goebel angered traditionalists when he brought printing history up-to-date with Die graphischen Künste der Gegenwart [The Graphic Arts of the Present Time] in 1895. Five years later, Goebel lent his essay Erlauterungen zur Sammlung von Musterdrucken auf Strassburger Specialpapieren [Elucidation on a Collection of Sample Prints on Strasbourg Special Papers] to a wonderful specimen book prepared by the Strasbourg Neue Papier Manufactur.

For the first time, a copy of this extraordinary volume has reach the United States and can be found in the Graphic Arts Collection at Firestone Library.
  

The book is a “state of the art” survey of printing techniques to the turn of the last century, including etching, engraving, photogravure, heliogravure, phototypies, lichtdruck or collotype, autotype, lithography, chromolithography, and much more. There are examples of paper for playing cards in color (spielkarten), maps in color (landkartendruck) and other special papers.

Near the end is an astonishing progressive series of lithographic proofs showing a bird’s eye view of the actual Neue Papier factory.