Bull's Head and Mermaid - The Bernstein Project - Österreichische ...

Ill. 3: Papermaking with a paper mould, woodblock print from
1698
delicate. The relevance of watermark pairs was not taken
into account by Briquet (1907) in his watermark collection,
and thus he referred to the large number of variants of individual
watermarks.
The fact that one finds watermark pairs is, however, very
important: based on the number of extant pairs of forms it
is possible, for instance, to estimate the number of vats in a
particular paper mill and thus the size of the business (Weiß
1955). Detecting several different pairs of watermark forms
from one paper mill verifies that various motifs were used
at one and the same place.
The production of wire figures for watermarks requires
special skill. When paper first began to be produced, they
were made by the papermakers themselves, but later they
were made by specialized craftsmen who were often gold
or silversmiths (Spoer). The craft of forming wire figures
withstood the invention of the electroforming process
around 1830. Not least, handmade paper that contains watermarks
offers valuable dating possibilities because of the
“independent existence” of the watermarks’ wire forms.
Since the
act of couching was hard on both the mould and the attached
wire forms, on occasion such figures worked themselves
loose. Soldering points, which can still be seen in the
watermarks, are a sign of later repairs. Such repairs could
result in the shifting or deformation of a watermark. The
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wire figures were also sometimes damaged when scrubbing
the mould clean with brushes. Changes in the wire figure,
visible in the watermark, offers a key to the production
chronology of a particular type of paper. In addition, it can
be surmised that wire figures were sometimes transferred
to new screens, which also presents dating possibilities
(Tschudin 1996).
The paper produced in Europe reached its best quality in
the fifteenth to sixteenth century. Its export led to the
spread of book printing. Technical improvements were developed
in the early modern period in the production of
handmade paper, which as mentioned above is characterized
by visible warp and woof wires in addition to watermarks.
This “new” paper, vellum paper (Lat. Vellum = skin),
was first produced in England in the middle of the eighteenth
century. In Germany, widespread production only
began at the beginning of the nineteenth century (Spoer).
Watermarks finally stopped playing such a major role when
paper began to be manufactured industrially, which resulted
in an increase in production, a multitude of formats,
and, especially, paper being stored for longer periods of
time.
The oldest European paper format
(Bologna about 1308, after Tschudin 2002)
• Imperiale 500 mm x 740 mm
• Reale 450 mm x 620 mm
• Mezzane 350 mm x 520 mm
• Reçute 320 mm x 450 mm
Literature: Bannasch, Wasserzeichen als Datierungshilfe;
Hößle, Württembergische Papiergeschichte; Jaffé, Zur Geschichte
des Papiers; Piccard, Die Wasserzeichenforschung
als historische Hilfswissenschaft; Piccard, Datierung des
Missale speciale; Schweizer, Frühes Papier; Spoer, Drahtgeschichten;
Tschudin, Grundzüge der Papiergeschichte;
Tschudin, Methodik der Papierdatierung; Weiß, Bedeutung
der Wasserzeichenkunde; Weiß, Geschichte des Papiers;
Weiß, Zeittafel zur Papiergeschichte.
C.K. (C.P.-K.)
Paper: from Fabriano to Europe
How and when paper and papermaking was introduced to
Italy has yet to be studied. The only clear pieces of evidence
we have date to the thirteenth century. A notarized document
issued in 1235 in Genoa states that two Ligurians,
one from Lucca and both owners of paper mills, had employed
a papermaker for their workshops. Twenty years later
(1255), a notarized certificate documents the founding
of a company by a Milanese and a Genoese papermaker to
begin paper production in the vicinity of Milan.
But to the south of the peninsula in Sicily paper already
existed from the twelfth century. It seems that here at least
two Arabian paper mills were in operation, one near Catania,
the other in the vicinity of Palermo. It is certain, however,
that Sicilian paper was, like the Spanish paper produced