BKS/LIT 341 Paper Museum
(For a chronolgy of papermaking's invention and spread, from China and Japan to the Islamic countries and Europe, see my summary based on Dard Hunter's Papermaking, 1957/1978. Click here for a short glossary of paper-making and papyrology terms.)
1) Goucher’s
letterhead stationery: though this is machine-made paper, it has
a watermark, but no chain lines. How did they do that?
2) Southworth
high-rag-content paper stocks for 8 ½ x 11 sheets: 24 pound “Fine Granite,”
White, 25% Cotton Rag, recycled, with watermark.; 32 pound “Resume Paper”
(Ivory, 100% Cotton Rag recycled, with watermark); “Fine Cover Stock,” White,
25% cotton rag, no watermark. What do "watermarks" do for modern paper documents that were produced by machine?
Book Printing Papers--full-sized sheeets, made from linen and cotten raw materials, in varying weights and finishes/colors.
4) Naole 300
pound card stock (20 ½ x 30 inches)
5) Silvered finish heavy cotton stock (an examples of modern printing stocks using organic and inorganic materials): “SD QT ZX” (28 x 20 inches)
Art and Craft Papers--made with non-cotton and non-linen raw materials, with intentionally added "imperfections"
6) Tai Kingin
with metal flake and synthetic fiber insertions.
7) Obaonai Cream
Feather: Japanese rice paper and linen combination. According to
Dard Hunter, rice-fiber-based papers were common in Japanese paper
manufacture from the earliest days, for obvious reasons. They
used stems and leaves that otherwise would have been waste products of
rice production and made a high-quality, if somewhat transparent,
paper. What would that transparency mean for writing with
ink? How might that affect the development of the book in
Japan? At what point in history would linen have been available
to add to the rice paper stock and why might they add it?
8) Silk Cream
25 x 37 (actually 25 ¼ x 37)—natural vs. machine made products and
standardization (You will read about printed book production's
influence on standardization of raw materials and output in Elizabeth Eisenstein, "Some Features of Print Culture" in Writing Material,
124-33.) Silk is another "substrate" used for manuscripts and
some printed books in Japan, but it depends for its raw materials on
silkworm coccoons and the mulberry tree leaves upon which the worms
feed. Would this be a less or more expensive paper than rice
paper?
9) Mughal Rose (19 x 25 ¼ with embedded rose petals and ?vegetable leaves? [LNP suggests tarragon based on faint aroma]
10) Larkspur
(19 x 25 ¼ strongly one-sided paper for boards (also see 6, 7, 9 above, for
covers and pastedowns).
15) Crossed Lines
Grey / B (deliberate web crossing on only side of the paper –a
light-weight “wrapping paper,” also not designed for double-sided
viewing). This sample represents a kind of paper-making craft designed
to cross over into the art-paper market.
16) Marbled Paper: “French Shell Blue 19”—note how tactilely distinct the un-laquered leaves are—the fragility of the emulsion on paper format is only protected by limiting users’ contact with it or by coating it with lacquer after binding. Marbled papers are first seen in European bindings as paste-downs on the inner surfacese of boards in the eighteenth century (Abigail Quandt, Conservator, Walters Art Gallery).
Asian Papers--paper making's most
ancient origins (China, Japan, East Asia) used widely available plants
as raw materials: silk, mulberry leaves, and Lokta (Daphne
bhuloa). Linen
and cotton, crops common in the Middle East and Europe, were adapted
for paper only after the secret of paper making was learned by
non-Asians from Tang dynasty Chinese craftsmen captured by Islamic
troops of the Abbasid Caliphate and their Tibetan Empire allies at the
Battle of Tharaz (also Taraz or Talas) River (Turkmenistan) in 751 CE.
17) Indian silk paper, "Khaki"--Indian silk can be imported from China or Japan, or of local manufacture, but whatever its source it tends to be very expensive, and too flexible for printed books except woodblock prints.
18) Mulberry tissue, "Cafe Latte"--tissue papers are luxury disposable goods intentionally made too thin for printing or even handwritten text, except in the most extraordinary circumstances.
19) Lokta paper, "Natural Color"--Nepalese paper from the fibrous flowering shrub, Daphne bhuloa,
has been made by hand for thousands of years. Lokta first was used to
write sacred Buddhist texts and government documents. (Compare
the Middle Eastern and European first uses of parchment and paper for
sacred texts like the Torah, Bible, and Qur'an.) Daphne bhuloa
grows at a mile to two miles high in the Himilayas and can be harvested
up to three times a year without killing the plant, thus appearing to
be the only sustainable raw material for paper making. It also is
extremely tear-resistant and durable, and the source plants are long-lived, with estimated life spans of one
to two millenia. Wood-block printed sutras survive one to two
thousand years ago. For an expert origami analysis of Lokta
paper's structural properties, see Ilan Garibi and Gadi Vishne, "Paper Review #18:
Lokta," The Fold [Origami U.S.A.], September-October 2013: https://origamiusa.org/thefold/article/paper-review-18-lokta
Reference Books
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