#decorative papers

[hdslibrary]

Refulgent Summer Blooms

August has slipped into September, but these are always blooming. Enjoy these shining bright flowers of the Dutch gilt paper end papers in an 18th century work by Christian mystic, Jakob Böhme. (For more on the contents of the book, see this recent post.)

Böhme, Jakob. Theosophia revelata. Das ist: Alle göttliche Schriften des gottseligen und hocherleuchteten deutschen Theosophi... [Amsterdam, 1730-1731].

[uwmspeccoll]

Staff Pick of the Week!

This week I am sharing The Bridge: a poem by Hart Crane with photographs by Richard Benson, printed in 1981 for the members of The Limited Editions Club in New York in and edition of 2000 copies signed by the photographer.. 

This book caught my eye with its bright blue paste papers wrapping the box and making up the end sheets in the book. The papers are reproductions of the originals made by Carol Blinn. Paste papers are made by mixing pigment with a starch to create a paste that can be painted on a paper to decorate it, the paste mixture allows you to push the pigment around, moving it with different tools until the desired effect is created. Once you have seen some decorated paste papers they are hard to miss. Blinn’s designs suggest a body of rolling waves under blue sky, perhaps they are the waves bustling beneath the Brooklyn Bridge which inspired Hart Crane to write his first long poem.

This edition maintains many of the visual themes of the first edition of The Bridge, first published in 1930 by the Black Sun Press, which is wrapped in a blue paper cover and features photos of the bridge by Crane’s friend Walker Evans. 

This book was designed by Stephen Stinehour. The font of the main text is Fourteen-point Monotype Dante, the headings are also Dante in other sizes. The text was set and printed by Michael & Winifred Bixler in Somerville, Massachusetts. The five photographs are by the photographer Richard Mead Atwater Benson and were printed by The Meriden Gravure Company in Meriden, Connecticut.  The smooth white papers were produced specially for this edition at the Mohawk Mill in Cohoes, New York. The edition was bound at The Stinehour Press in Lunenburg, Vermont. 

Use this link for more Staff Pick of the Week posts!

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Teddy- Special Collections Graduate Intern

[fashionbooksmilano]

Oriental Flowers

Traditional Japanese Floral Designs  -  Design Books - Vol. 4

Wolfgang Hageney

Belvedere Books, Roma 1981,  208 pages, Paperbound, 24x32cm., 152 original Japanese illustrations with 67 motifs in color and 85 in b/w and silver printing,  Text in 5 languages (English, Italian, German, Spanish, French).                   ISBN 9788870700053

euro 90,00

email if you want to buy [email protected]

Decorative oriental flower illustrations from an antique Japanese folding book. Destinated for fabrics and decorations of all kinds. Motifs from various arts and crafts, such as kimonos and textiles, porcelain, ceramics, decorative paper and lacquer-work. Illustrations of a linear graphic style with a calligraphic energy. 

11/11/21

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Decorative papers from Cambridge Imprint just arrived .....

[uwmspeccoll]

Marbled Monday

Welcome to another Marbled Monday! It’s a bit dreary here in Milwaukee today, but this fiery lava-esque marbling is sure to brighten things up a bit! We found this marbling on Le Terrecotte Figurate del Museo Nazionale di Napoli, or, “The Figured Terracottas of the National Museum of Naples," if you don’t speak Italian, while looking for books we could potentially use in our Decorative Sunday series. The book is by archaeologist and historian Alda Levi (1890-1950) and was published by Vallecchi Firenze Publishing House in 1926. Levi’s work included excavations on the Via dell'Abbondanza, the longest road in Pompeii. 

This marbling appears to be a pattern called Gloster (also known as Gloucester, Partidge's Eye, Oeil de Perdrix, and Stein Marmor mit Grießtropfen). This 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 colors of ink mixed with a dispersant are sprinkled onto the bath, causing those last spots to have open, very fine spots inside them” (University of Washington Libraries Digital Collections). 

View more Marbled Monday posts.

-- Alice, Special Collections Department Manager

[uwmspeccoll]

Marbled Monday

This book is somewhat unassuming on the outside, with is brown leather and subtle gold tooling and stamping, but on the inside has the most beguiling marbled endpapers! The book is Elbert Hubbard’s Scrap Book: Containing the Inspired and Inspiring Selections Gathered During a Life Time of Discriminating Reading for His Own Use. We hold three copies of the book—this is copy 2 and the only copy we hold with this binding. 

Elbert Hubbard (1856-1915) was an American writer, publisher, artist, and philosopher who founded the Roycroft Arts and Crafts Community in Aurora, New York in 1895. Hubbard fashioned himself somewhat after William Morris as a socialist craftsman, although he later abandoned socialism. Hubbard and his wife Alice died in the sinking of the Lusitania on May 7, 1915 when the ship was torpedoed by a German U-boat. 

Elbert Hubbard’s Scrap Book was published in 1923 by The Roycrofters in Aurora, New York. It is a collection of passages by notable figures that Hubbard had collected during his life. The marbled papers are in a Serpentine pattern, similar to those we shared a few weeks ago on our copy of  Romanae Historiae Compendium... . These papers feature teal, reddish brown, and cream colors swirled together in a sort of zig-zagged pattern. 

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-- Alice, Special Collections Department Manager

[hdslibrary]

Googly Eyes

When you look at this pretty 19th century pamphlet it looks right back at you!

Massachusetts. General Court. Senate.   Rules and orders to be observed in the Senate of the commonwealth of Massachusetts, for the year 1836 / published by order of the Senate.  Boston : Dutton and Wentworth, State Printers, 1836.

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Decorative Papers

This week we present selected decorative papers from Matrix 3 (Winter 1983) and Matrix 5 (Winter 1985) published by John and Rosalind Randle at their Whittington Press.

The decorative papers are from several different articles. From top to bottom:

1. Examples of Curwen pattern papers designed by Albert Rutherston, Paul Nash, Eric Ravilious, and Graham Sutherland. From the article “The Curwen Press Collection in Cambridge University Library” by John Dreyfus in Matrix 5, p. 23-32.

2 – 8. Paper samples from Hans Schmoller’s article “An Italian Paperchase: The Decorated Papers of Flavia Farina Cini, Pia Vitali, and Eleonora dei Conti Gallo,” from Matrix 5, p. 1-14.

9. Wrapping papers designed for Gordon Fraser from the article “The Wood-Engravings of John Lawrence” by Peter Guy from Matrix 3, p. 21-41.

10. Marbled paper samples from Anne Chambers article “Techniques of Marbling Paper,” Matrix 3, p. 53-59.

Our copies of Matrix are another donation from our friend Jerry Buff.

View more posts from Matrix.

View other posts relating to the Whittington Press.

View more posts about decorative arts and pattern books.

–Sarah, Special Collections Graduate Intern