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

Yoshitake Kobayashi, and of Mozart, published in 1992 by
Alan Tysen. Nevertheless, in an article about the importance
of paper and watermark research for musicology, Ulrich
Konrad pointed out in 1999 that a methodical survey of
music paper has long been needed, and emphasized that
“strictly speaking, it is still missing today” (Konrad, Notenpapier,
p. 20). Musicological results with regard to watermarks
have often been drawn from the point of view of paper
historians, and the publishing of such documentation is
frequently strewn here and there, often hidden in the addenda
of special studies that are not catalogued separately.
This can especially be seen with regard to the critical reports
relating to the New Schubert-Edition.
In certain cases, an exact description of the paper and an
analysis of its watermarks help to reorganize the various
parts of a manuscript whose order has become obscure
through years of historical tradition. When lucky, it can be
found that a paper’s provenance agrees with a life station
of a composer or a conductor, thus providing additional testimony
regarding, for instance, the chronology of bequests
or the location a piece was composed. The watermarks
must be clearly identifiable for such additional information
to be reliable, and therefore the need for knowledge about
the history of the respective paper mills, the sequence of
the mills’ owners, and about the papermakers themselves
must not be underestimated. The examination of the paper
music is written on can provide tentative answers to questions
that, in turn, can often be confirmed by other facets
of the written sources.
Literature: Duda, Das musikalische Werk Franz Xaver Süßmayrs;
Hudson, Musicology and paper study; Hudson, Concerning
the watermarks; Konrad, Notenpapier; Konrad,
Wasserzeichen; Konrad, The use of watermarks; Kümmerling,
Katalog der Sammlung Bokemeyer; LaRue, Watermarks
and musicology; Rudén, Vattenmärken; Schmidt-
Görg, Wasserzeichen; Schmidt-Görg, Die Wichtigkeit der
Wasserzeichen; Schubert, Werke; Shearon, Watermarks and
rastra; Tyson, Paper studies and Haydn; Tyson, Wasserzeichen-Katalog;
Weiß, Katalog der Wasserzeichen; Weiß, Zu
Papieren und Wasserzeichen.
F.S. (C.P.-K.)
Watermarks and Cartography
The many advantages offered by the identification of watermarks
for the history of cartography was first recognized
by the English map specialist and librarian of the Royal Geographical
Society Edward Heawood (1863–1949). He had
examined the work done by the watermark scholars of the
19 th century and had intensively studied the results of their
research, such as the four-volume magnum opus of
Charles-Moïse Briquet published in 1907. In 1924 Heawood
published an article related to this field dealing with the
verification of the period and the geographic location that
specific watermarks were used. He was the first to chart, on
the basis of data collected by Briquet, the spread of the
“Bull’s head” and “Rod of Basel” watermarks.
Heawood referred to the Mercator Atlas in this publication
and recommended a detailed analysis of its first edi-
tion: “A careful study of the marks in all copies available
would no doubt throw light on the precise manner of issue
of the various parts of this first edition.” (cf. Heawood, The
Use of Watermarks, p. 398). An examination of the sheets
of one set of the large Mercator maps kept at the University
Library in Rome resulted in the discovery that in this collection,
maps that had originally been published over a extended
period of time here all contained the same watermark,
suggesting that this copy of the atlas was a reissue.
Such results demonstrated that when using watermark
analysis in studying the printing history of maps, new considerations
were necessary.
In reaction to the restrictions of period and subject matter
Briquet had imposed on his collection, Heawood decided
to examine a different period, turning to paper from the
17 th and 18 th century. He also took paper that was used for
printing into account. His first step was to systematically
analyse watermarks in large format paper, which was used
for printing maps and sea charts, as at the time of his research
such paper had not been documented precisely
enough. His epoch-making work about the watermarks of
the 17 th and 18 th century appeared posthumously as a publication
of the Paper Publication Society founded by Émile
Joseph Labarre. It became the first volume of the series
“Monumenta chartae papyraceae historiam illustrantia”, a
series that became extremely important for watermark research
as a whole.
The Hessian geodesist and watermark scholar Robert
Große-Stoltenberg, whose estate is now held by the Hauptstaatsarchiv
Stuttgart, dealt repeatedly with the importance
of watermarks in research on old maps. His study “Der
Große Atlas von Deutschland von Johann Wilhelm Abraham
Jaeger”, Frankfurt 1789, which he published in 1969,
is based on his research on old maps and the paper they are
printed on. After an examination of eight complete copies
of the maps contained in this atlas, eighty-one of Germany
and seven of other countries, Große-Stoltenberg asked,
“whether the watermarks of maps, printed primarily on
large-format sheets (Grand Royal and the like), may also be
used without reservation in making decisions with regard to
verifying the service life of moulds and motifs” (cf. Große-
Stoltenberg, Wasserzeichen, p. 94). One aspect pointed out
by Grosse-Stoltenberg is of particular relevance for watermark
research: when maps were reissued, the cartouche
usually remained unmodified, meaning that print of the
chart, including the original date, also stayed the same.
Thus, one must be careful when drawing conclusions about
dates of watermarks based on the dates printed on maps.
In the USA, over last few decades David Woodward has
dealt with the physical aspects of old maps, above all carefully
analysing the ink used for drawing or printing them. In
Woodward’s opinion, the most important methodical
progress that has been made in watermark research has
been the transition from tracing by hand to more objective
means of documentation like photographic contact prints,
the Dylux method, or beta radiography. Through a rigorous
examination of the watermark motif “Mermaid”, Woodward
has tried answer the question whether differences between
two watermarks were caused by two different states
of the same mould or because of two different moulds being
used. For this, he has analysed the number and position
of knots with which the watermark figure was sewn to the
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