May 15, 2020
Marbling in National Trust books.
Marbled end papers and half-covers are most common in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, though the practice continued through the Victorian period, when mock-marbling became common in mass produced bindings. All of the pictures above, however, are original long eighteenth century hand crafted marbling. They are a mixture of oil size and alum size, however.
Creating a cohesive and repetitive pattern is surprisingly difficult and requires a lot of skill.
Images culled from a number of properties.
