These specimens of type ornaments and borders are from a facsimile of a ca. 1760 type specimen sheet laid in the 1983 catalog Type Studies: The Norstedt Collection of Matrices in the Typefoundry of the Royal Printing Office by Swedish museum curator Christain Axel-Nilsson (1934-2012), published in Stockholm by Norstedts Tryckeri. The specimen sheet displays ornaments by German typefounder Johann Gottfried Pöetzsch, who was manager of the Berling Type Foundry in Copenhagen from 1753 until his death in 1783. The foundry was eventually acquired by Swedish Printer Johan Per Lindh (1757-1820) in 1814, whose business had its origins in the Royal Printing House founded in 1526. After Lindh's death, the printing house and type foundry were acquired by Swedish printer Per Adolf Norstedt (1763-1840), who established the long-standing printing and publishing house that produced this catalog. Norstedts Förlag is Sweden's oldest, continuously-operating book publisher.
This specimen sheet was facsimiled from the only extant copy in the Nordiska Museet in Stockholm, and many of the matrices for the types shown here are preserved in the collections of the museum. The Norstedt type foundry operated from 1821 to 1980, but one third of the Norstedt matrix collection, including those for the ornaments shown here, were imported by Johan Per Lindh in 1814.
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