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

Ill. 1: Briquet: Les Filigranes
bruck to Vienna at the beginning of the 19 th century. From
this codex the watermark pair “He-Goat” (entire figure, Piccard-Online
No. 085727) can also be used for comparison
(Ill. 7). Piccard gives as his source for drawing No. 085727
the folia 10, 16, and 17. A comparison of the beta-radiography
of this watermark and Piccard’s drawing thereof reveals
this drawing’s precision. The second drawing, No.
085729 (Ill. 8), is quite different: the wire figure of the paper
mould seems to have been deformed – the he-goat’s
head has been flattened. Piccard names folia 11 and 13 as
the source for this tracing, but when examining photos of
the watermarks in these two sheets, two variants of the hegoat
were detected. The sections circled in Ill. 8 show that
in folium 11 the wire was broken, whereas the wire for folium
13 was clearly connected. In addition, the point marked
with a white arrow shows a different bending of the wire.
And lastly, it is possible to see differences in how rounded
parts of the head are (black arrow).
Piccard’s drawing gives quite a different impression of this
watermark. By incorrectly interpreting the section around
the eyes and mouth, whose deformations can only really be
understood by comparing it to No. 085727, the relationship
between the two watermarks has become blurred. And
whether Piccard’s simplifications of the forelegs are within
the “width of the line” seems doubtful.
Because they are found in the fold of the codex, it is difficult
to record the watermarks of the semi-folio manuscript
W 718 (Böhm II Suppl. Nr. 413), a Lehenbuch of the Earldom
of Görz from the years 1398 to 1408 that was
brought to Vienna in 1870 from the Schatzgewölbe in
Graz. In addition, the exact course of the wire of the watermark
“Lion” (Ill. 9) is difficult to make out, both in the original
and in the beta-radiography. By placing the beta radiography
and the drawing over one another, one sees that a
number of simplifications have been made (for instance at
the belly of the lion), as well as a misinterpretation of the
heart-shaped tassel at the end of the tail, and a deviation of
several millimetres in the position of the chain wires (see
white arrow). In the face of these wide deviations, and in
order to better understand the course of the wire, the author
has also attempted to trace the watermark, comparing
this drawing with that of Piccard (Piccard/white, my own
drawing/grey).
This comparison shows that the precision of tracings
must still be brought to question, and Piccard’s statement
that his drawings vary from the original only with regard to
the width of the lines does not always stand. Nevertheless,
after my own attempt at drawing this watermark, Piccard’s
accomplishment deserves our highest respect.
Literature: Auer / Wehdorn, Das Haus-, Hof- und Staatsarchiv;
Bittner, Gesamtinventar; Böhm, Die Handschriften
des Kaiserlichen und Königlichen Haus-, Hof- und Staats-
Archivs; Antonius, Die Handschriftenabteilung; Piccard, Die
Wasserzeichenforschung als historische Hilfswissenschaft;
Piccard, Die Wasserzeichenkartei Piccard im Hauptstaatsarchiv
Stuttgart, Bd. V; Amelung, Nachruf auf Gerhard Piccard,
388; Bannasch, Wasserzeichen als Datierungshilfe;
Gerardy, Datieren mit Hilfe von Wasserzeichen, 51f.
M.H. (C.P.-K.)
Watermark Collections
One of the first to realize the significance of watermarks as
an aid in dating was the natural scientist Gotthelf Fischer
von Waldheim, who in a paper published in Nuremberg in
1804 titled “Beschreibung einiger typographischer Seltenheiten
nebst Beiträgen zur Erfindungsgeschichte der
Buchdruckerkunst”, reproduced thirty watermarks from the
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