Marbled Paper Designs

Marbled paper refers to a variety of decorative appearances that resemble the vein-like texture of marble. The technique of marbling entails floating colours on a liquid and mixing them by chemical and physical means to achieve a pattern. A sheet of paper is placed on the pattern and is then removed, essentially forming a monotype print. It's a complex process involving delicate interactions and manipulations of buoyancy, surface tension, capillarity and viscosity, with even the ambient temperature and humidity affecting the outcome.

"Until after the middle of the nineteenth century, when the development of mechanized bookbinding methods first diminished and afterward virtually did away with the need for their services, hand bookbinders utilized marbled paper and the marbler's craft to embellish many of the books that were bound during the previous several centuries. Marbled papers were employed outside the book trade as well to adorn a great many products of everyday use.

They served, for example, as wall coverings; as linings for the interiors of trunks, boxes, wallets, musical instrument cases and other containers; for covering boxes and other receptacles; as ornamentation in the panels of cabinets, furniture, and even harpsichords; as wrappings for toys, drug powders, and other consumer goods; for enclosing blank books used for writing, and for other stationary purposes; and as shelf papers for lining cupboards and cabinets and for many home-decorating purposes.

Despite their prior popularity and extensive employment, marbled papers and the marbler's craft have remained the most obscure, and least investigated and understood, of all aspects of book arts. [..] For about two and a half centuries after its introduction into Europe about the year 1600, marbling was one of the chief means available for producing the colored papers used in bookbinding and other decorative work. It performed a similarly important role in the day-to-day life of the Near East, where the art was brought to perfection even earlier and used in conjunction with Islamic bookbinding, calligraphy, iconography, fine arts, and even administrative uses. In both the East and the West, large numbers and many generations of people spent their working lives in the production of marbled papers needed for these various purposes."

From the introduction to: 'Marbled Paper: Its History, Techniques, and Patterns' 1990 by Richard J Wolfe, widely regarded as the leading authority on marbling. Wolfe is mentioned as a reference in the notes below; paraphrased from the source UW site.

Vintage 19th c. marbled paper, antique straight pattern

Historically Wolfe suggests that the Antique straight is a pattern seen at least as early as the 17th century. This decorative arrangement is created by first completing a feather pattern. Then, a shower of fine (usually white) colour dots would be sprinkled over the entire bath.

Collection Notes [relates to all of the images below]: The flat sample from which this photo was scanned is a salvaged endsheet. There is no record of the original item from which these endsheets were taken, so the creation date is a best estimate, using Wolfe as a guide.

Vintage 19th c. marbled paper, Turkish pattern

Historically, this is the oldest of Western marbled patterns and dates back to as early as the middle part of the 15th century. Because this is the earliest (and simplest) example, it provides a base or jump off point for a large number of other patterns.

The pattern is created when one or more colours are thrown onto the surface of the bath using a marbling brush. The first colours thrown tend to constrict as other follow and can become the 'vein' colours for the latter thrown inks.

Vintage 19th c. marbled paper, Turkish on Stormont pattern

The stormont* pattern is a rare effect in which turpentine is added to the blue colour causing it to break up into a fine network of lacy or flakey spots.

Vintage 19th c. marbled paper, Gloster pattern

Gloster is similar to and often mistaken for a Stormont pattern. They both require a dispersant such as turpentine to cause their distinctive white (open) spots. The difference is that the Stormont pattern, overall, appears to be more like a Turkish pattern in that the ink has been mixed with the dispersant to cover the entire surface, whereas the Gloster looks more like a Zebra pattern where the dispersant has only been mixed with a single colour, making the spots distinctive from the other colours used.

The pattern is created by starting with a Turkish base, then a comb with one set of teeth is drawn across the bath twice vertically (or horizontally), once in either direction with the second pass halving the first. Then one or more colours of ink mixed with a dispersant are sprinkled onto the bath, causing those last spots to have open, very fine spots inside them.

Vintage 19th c. marbled paper, Spanish moiré on Turkish with gold vein pattern

The pattern is created by making a Turkish pattern where the first colour used is gold. As further colours are dropped to complete the Turkish pattern, the gold constricts into veins. Then a paper, which has been folded in half is laid onto the bath, moving slightly from side to side to create the curvilinear gradations typical of this pattern.

Vintage 19th c. marbled paper, Spanish moiré on Serpentine with gold vein pattern

As above.

Vintage 19th c. marbled paper, Nonpareil pattern

Nonpareil [Fr.] means ‘matchless' or ‘unrivalled.' This pattern is related to the Wide comb (Arch) pattern as well as the Old Dutch pattern. All are variations of one another and are often mistaken for each other. The major differences are very difficult to pinpoint, but seem to stem from the size of intervals the last comb's teeth are set in.

This pattern is created when the desired colours are dropped sequentially onto the bath using some sort of implement to regulate the drop sizes. According to Miura* a comb with one set of teeth set at intervals of 15-30mm is drawn through the bath horizontally, once in either direction with the second pass halving the first. Then another comb with teeth set at 2-3 mm is drawn once across the bath vertically (or horizontally).

*'The Art of Marbled Paper: Marbled Patterns and How to Make Them' by Einen Miura, 1988/1991.

Vintage 19th c. marbled paper, Schrottel pattern

The pattern was created in Germany in the early part of the 18th century. It has many different spellings but Miura suggests in his spelling that the pattern's name is derived from the German word Schrot which means 'small shot' or 'small grain.'

The pattern is created by starting with a Turkish base. Then, a mixture is thrown onto the bath whose reaction with the previous colours causes the dark spots with white halos to appear, that are reminiscent in look to tiny stones. This mixture is made up of ox gall and oil. The primary colour for this example is black.

Vintage 19th c. marbled paper, Italian pattern

This pattern was created in Italy near the end of the 18th century. Its name is likely based equally on it nation of origin and the fact that it so closely resembles the actual stone, Italian marble.

This pattern is created when, after however many colours desired are thrown onto the bath, a dispersant is sprinkled over the entire bath in fine dots. These tiny drops of dispersant cause the previously thrown colours to constrict into tiny veins. Miura suggests that the dispersant might be made up of a mixture of soap, spirits and ox gall and then sprinkled over the bath through fine wire mesh to maintain the size of the dispersant drops. These constricted veins cause the colours to appear as they would in marbled stone.

Vintage 19th c. marbled paper, Italian Overprinted on Turkish pattern

Normally, the Turkish pattern is created when one or more colours are thrown onto the surface of the bath using a marbling brush. The first colours thrown tend to constrict and become the 'vein' colours for the latter thrown inks. However, this particular sample has been printed with a lithographic process for both patterns as was popular towards the end of the 1800's.The primary colours for this sample are light brown, peach, and black.

Vintage 19th c. marbled paper, Spanish moiré on Turkish with Gold vein pattern

The pattern is created by making a Turkish pattern where the first colour used is gold. As further colours are dropped to complete the Turkish pattern, the gold constricts into veins. Then a paper, which has been folded in half is laid onto the bath, moving slightly from side to side to create the curvilinear gradations typical of this pattern. [repeating description from up the page]

Vintage 19th c. marbled paper, Gold vein Overprinted on Turkish antiqued pattern

Though related in terms of end appearance, an 'overprint' is not the same process as 'Double marble' according to Miura. A double marble is created when a single paper has been through the marbling process twice where both patterns are on top of one another. An overprint is created when a paper, already marbled, is then printed on top of another pattern using a lithographic process.

This pattern is created by first completing a Turkish antiqued pattern ('antiqued' refers to any pattern where a last colour, usually white, is finely sprinkled over the entire bath). Then after that paper has been dried, the marbled side would be printed over with a Gold vein pattern (Italian pattern using metallic ink) using a lithographic process.

Vintage 19th c. marbled paper, Gold vein Overprinted over Spanish moiré on Turkish pattern

Similar to above, this pattern is created by first completing a Spanish moiré on Turkish pattern. Then after that paper has been dried, the marbled side would be printed over with a Gold vein pattern (Italian pattern using metallic ink) using a lithographic process.

---

The history of marbling is fairly obscure. It is thought that the decoration first appeared in Japan by at least the early 12th century, from a process known (still) as Suminagashi ('sumi' means ink and 'nagashi' means floating, thus 'a pattern formed by floating ink'). The craft may have arisen in China independently or was imported from Japan very early on in the piece. Certainly, the inference in all the references is that a marbling technique was first practised in Japan.

Perhaps a century later, marbling appeared in, or near, Afghanistan, becoming an art form of the Persian and Ottoman worlds, centred in Turkey. Again, the marbling process may have been imported from the far East via the Silk Road trade route or it arose independently. The distinct Turkish marbling technique is known as Ebru and even the origin of that word is contentious, connoting either cloud art or water surface in Farsi or a related regional dialect.

The Suminagashi and Ebru forms of marbling are simplistic and rudimentary in comparison to the diverse and technically precise art that emerged later in Europe. In this case it is known that the technique was transplanted from Turkey to France, Italy and Germany in the 15th and 16th centuries, where a much larger body of craftsmen developed the technique.

Incidentally, the first mention of the marbling technique in western literature was by Athanasius Kircher in his 1646 book, 'Ars Magna Lucis et Umbrae'.

• All images above come from the University of Washington Decorated and Decorative Paper Collection.
• 'Marbled Paper: Its History, Techniques, and Patterns' 1990 by Richard J Wolfe
• 'The Art of Marbled Paper: Marbled Patterns and How to Make Them' 1991 by Einen Miura.
• Under the Covers: the Hidden Art of Endpapers from the collection of the Salem Athenæum.
• Art of Ebru.
• 'Marbled Paper' by Joel Silver, 2005 in Fine Books & Collections Magazine.
• Paper marbling at Wikipedia.
• The Lada-Mocarski Decorated Paper Collection at the Folger Shakespeare Library.
• Decorated paper and papermaking at the Dutch Royal & National Library.
• The world of Japanese Marbling: Suminagashi & Suimonga.
• The Decorated Paper post on Metafilter was particularly helpful.
• Youtube Playlists: Marbling Set One & Marbling Set Two.
• Marbled Papers set at Flickr by MyHandBoundBooks.
• The Indiana University exhibition site: From Pen to Printing Press: Ten Centuries of Islamic Book Arts, contains a page/series of images on Turkish marbling.
• Previously: Bookart.
  
• Consider : The Roumi Art Institute in Rotterdam for your paper marbling & calligraphy needs [sponsor]

Isla de Cuba Pintoresca

The Picturesque Island of Cuba

Entrada del Puerto de La Habana tomada desde el Colegio de Sn. Carlos
Entrance to the Port of Havana taken from San Carlos School

Alameda de Paula
Paula Boulevard

Cafetal la Ermita en las Lomas de Cusco
The Ermita Coffee plantation in the hills of Cusco

Casa de Beneficiencia (Habana)
Havana Orphanage

Puente de la Carniceria en Matanzas
Butchery bridge in Matanzas

Teatro de Tacon (Habana)

Tacon theater (Havana)

Paradero de Camino de Hierro (Habana)

Havana railway station

Vista de la entrada del Paseo de Tacon (Habana)

View of the entrance to the Tacon promenade (Havana)

Vista del Gran Mercado de Cuba

View of the Great Market of [Santiago de] Cuba

Vista del Templete y parte de la Plaza de Armas

View of the temple and part of the Military Parade Ground Plaza

Iglesia y Camino de Hierro de Regla

Regla Church and railroad

Iglesia y Plaza de Güines
Güines Church and plaza

Muelle de Caballeria
Cavalry pier

Thirty two lithographs from the album, 'Isla de Cuba Pintoresca' are available online via the Cuban Heritage Collection among the University of Miami Libraries Digital Collections [[Digital Initiatives homesite]]

The album is exceedingly rare, so rare in fact that nobody seems to know just how many illustrations were originally issued. The lithographs were published through a monthly subscription between 1839 and 1842 but only later editions, from the mid-1850s, appear to be 'complete' (complete being 27 plates and 2 maps; whereas the original series may have included up to 49 plates). Original incomplete sets fetch over $10,000 when they surface at auction every decade or so and even the later 1855 edition(s) sell for more than $5000.

The value of the prints comes not just from their relative scarcity, but because the chromolithographs are widely regarded as the finest pictorial record of daily life in Cuba in the 19th century. The views include urban/landmark prospects in Havana and other port cities, scenes of daily life, folk customs and the period costumes of the people, including Afro-Cubans and European visitors. The cumulative effect of these diverse visual compositions is to bring the vibrancy of the island to life.

The artist responsible for the album (no text) was the Frenchman, (Pierre Toussaint) Fréderic Mialhe (1810-1881), who lived in Cuba for sixteen years from 1838. Mialhe was hired as a landscape artist for a fledgling French lithography firm in Cuba that came to overtake the established Spanish printshop run by the Costa brothers. Part of the reason for the confusion surrounding the the numbers in Mialhe's first series was due to his providing three somewhat similar lithographic suites during his time in Cuba. They are: 'Isla de Cuba', 'Isla de Cuba Pintoresca' and 'Viaje Pintoresco al Rededor de la Isla de Cuba'. Each series was published in multiple editions and in various languages, quickly obscuring the true record of production.

• George Glazer Gallery.
• Antipodean Books.
• Christie's: one & two.
• Grosvenor Prints.
• Abe Books.
• Yale Library | Wikimedia.
• An exhibition commemorating the 200th anniversary of Mialhe's birth is currently on display in Cuba.
• Previously: On The Nature of Cuba; Hecho a Mano.
• Amazon lists a number of books with plates by Federico Mialhe.
  
  

Celestial Mechanics

The images below are cropped and cleaned up somewhat from a newly digitised hand-written manuscript, online at Harvard University's Houghton Library: [MS Typ 57] 'La Sphere du Monde..', 1549, by Oronce Fine.

Geocentric (Ptolemaic) model of the universe

The interaction between the four classical (Hellenic) elements
and their properties : earth fire air water -- hot dry cold wet

Compass rose with compass points

Meridians and circles of latitude

This is a global map projection: attempting to render spherical surface
in a 2-dimensional plane (the last image below shows Fine's
most famous world map in cordiform -- heart-shaped -- projection)

Astrological calendar

Sundial designs

Oronce Fine (or Orance Finé) (1494-1555) was a third generation physician from France. He was also a teacher and prolific author in the fields of mathematics, geography, cartography and astronomy and he held the chair in mathematics at the Collège Royal in Paris for more than twenty years.

"Fine was a quintessential polymath, equally at home in the workshop as in the study. Not only did he make and sell his own instruments, he also designed
maps, prepared the illustrations for his many books, and worked as an editor and
overseer in Paris’s bustling printing houses."¹

Fine's prodigious output allowed for errors to appear in his published works however, and it was wildly exaggerated claims - for instance, he claimed to have squared the circle in myriad ways - that attracted contemporary criticism of his intellectual powers.

Until recently¹, Fine's achievements in the history of scientific enquiry have been judged closer to footnote status than significant offerings. It has long been held that Fine was a mere populariser of scientific tenets outlined by his own teachers and predecessors and that he had made few, if any, original contributions to scientific thought. But a more sympathetic view of Fine has emerged with a re-evaluation of the leading role he played in elevating mathematics, in particular, to a position of high intellectual merit in Renaissance-era France.

Given his energetic pursuit of both theoretical and practical disciplines, Fine was uniquely placed to attract serious attention from royalty and nobility whose patronage was obviously important in advancing 17th century French scientific pursuits. Fine also published, or contributed towards the publication of, more than seventy books, in Latin, that were widely read in his own country and also throughout much of the Holy Roman Empire.

"Fine was much more representative of the mathematical culture of the period than the extraordinary figures who have tended to monopolise historians’ attention. Arguably, indeed, he did much more to shape the nature of that culture than many of those who are now more famous than him." [A Mosley]¹

The current manuscript, dedicated to Henri II, from which the images above were drawn, is simply one example of Oronce Fine's diverse interests. The illustrations, in addition to the text, were produced by Fine himself. It was published in book form in the early 1550s but breaks no particular new ground and simply recycles ideas proposed by Aristotle, Ptolemy and Sacrobosco*.

• 'Le Sphere du Monde, proprement dicte Cosmographie' [approx: The known universe or Cosmography] by Oronce Fine, 1549 is online at Harvard University.
• Oronce Fine biography (et en Français) [W].
• ¹I am greatly indebted to Dr Alexander Marr from USC who kindly provided a copy of the introduction to a book about Fine he edited. It is a collection of articles examining Fine's published record within relevant scientific subject areas. The commentary above draws heavily from this introduction (not available online). 'The Worlds of Oronce Fine: Mathematics, Instruments and Print in Renaissance France' 2009, edited by Alexander Marr.
• via Houghton Library Blog.
• Previously : cartography | astronomy | astrology.
  

'Mappemonde Cordiforme d'Oronce Fine' {about 1534}
[this map is not in Fine's astronomy manuscript]

{Fine was noted for his cordiform or heart-shaped maps of the world. Another of his heart-shaped maps included the mysterious Terra Australis land mass - albeit joined to Antarctica - for the first time: LINK}

"Oronce Fine was one of the rare French geographers in the Renaissance to prepare maps of the world. This map is bordered with a handsome Renaissance decoration: two columns support a pediment bearing a Latin inscription signifying "A new and complete description of the world," interrupted in the middle by a coat of arms of France. Also to be noted is a vast southern land mass (Terra Australis), recently discovered but not yet explored." [source]

Mollusca

These illustrations are details taken from plates out of 'Molluscs and Shells' (1852-1856) at Botanicus by conchologist, malacologist and physician, Augustus Addison Gould. The book was part of a multi-volume series resulting from the United States Exploring Expedition of 1838-1842.

There can never be too many cephalopods.

Addit: Oops, forgot to say, previously: CEPHALOPODA

Architectura Regia

'Architectura Regia' is a 2-volume ink and ink wash manuscript in Latin produced in 1683 by Frederik Coenders van Helpen and available online at the Bavarian State Library in Munich.

All of the images above were spliced together, -- 'best fit' from varying magnifications -- cropped and (mostly) extensively background cleaned from single manuscript page images.

'Architectura Regia' is a treatise on the five classical orders of architecture : Ionic, Doric, Corinthian (Greek); Tuscan and Mixed (Roman) --

"Each style has its proper entablature, consisting of architrave, frieze and cornice." [W]

-- the dominating features seen in the images above. These are accompanied by heroic, mythological and even New World figures drawn within the arches of the architectural order sketches.

Van Helpen was an important government official from Groeningen in Holland who was well-travelled in Europe. From the scant information around online, it appears he was a cartographer and draughtsman by trade. As he died in 1618(?), this 1683 manuscript is presumably a copy or expansion of van Helpen's original work. (I remain confused about this {addit: see comments below}, as I also am about whether the online manuscript is actually a combination of both treatises or simply the first volume.). The manuscript is dedicated to Louis XIV, the Sun King, as seen in that final image above.

Manuscript catalogue pages: One [T] & Two [T]. {note: the majority of illustrations are found in the last 100 of the 500 web pages of manuscript images}

Previously in general: Architecture from the delicious bookmarks for BibliOdyssey, where classifying tags and post summaries can be found for all 1000+ entries on this site.