#nonpareil pattern

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Marbled Monday

This lovely sandy or striated-rock-like marbling is part of the binding of the book Culs de Lampe by the Gehenna Press, a fine arts press founded by American artist and graphic designer Leonard Baskin (1922-2000) in 1942. This book was published by the press in 1968. The paper is Nideggen and Fabriano blue and white and master printer Harold McGrath (1922-2000), who also printed for Barry Moser's Pennyroyal Press, was the printer.

The book consists of a series of culs-de-lampe, a subset of tailpieces that take a particular shape reminiscent of the bottom of a lamp (hence the name). These designs are often used at the bottom of pages or ends of sections or chapters of a book. Those seen here are printed in black, blue, green, and red and range in date from 1564-1680.

The marbled paper is a large nonpareil pattern. You can still see the underlying zig-zag or gel-git pattern that is the foundation of the nonpareil pattern (and most combed patterns). The colors are earthy browns and greys and remind me of sand or a cross-section of sedimentary rock. The binding was done by Gray Parrot, who has also bound editions for the likes of Dard Hunter's Mountain House Press and Henry Morris' Bird & Bull Press.

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-- Alice, Special Collections Department Manager

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Marbled Monday

For this week's Marbled Monday we revisit a book we've shared aspects of before—this is A Floating Diary: A Collection of Words and Wood Engravings Following a Week Afloat on a Narrow Boat by Linda Leatherbarrow. The book was published in London by Little Bird Press in 1980 and contains lovely wood engravings of riverside scenes documenting the author's journey by boat. While a couple of the wood engravings are included here, we shared the rest of them in a previous post which you can find here.

The marbling on the covers is a nonpareil pattern, which is often used as a base for more complex patterns like peacock (also known as bouquet) and feather. This pattern was created using maroon, tan, and several shades of blue.

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-- Alice, Special Collections Department Manager

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Marbled Monday

We return to Trianon Press's publications of William Blake's works this week, this time taking a look at William Blake's Illustrations of the Book of Job. It is similar to other Trianon Press works we have shared, with a leather and marbled paper half-binding. These two volumes slide into a single slipcase to protect them, which is part of the reason the marbling is in such good shape. These are part of a set with a group of colored plates of Blake's illustrations for the Book of Job that comes in its very own slipcase.

The marbling is a nonpareil pattern, one of the most foundational patterns in marbling. Nonpareil uses usually a stone or Turkish pattern base followed by a gelgit (zigzag) pattern that is ultimately combed to create the small lines or arches seen in the final pattern. This example uses shades of blue and tan to create the pattern.

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-- Alice, Special Collections Department Manager

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Marbled Monday

This subtle marbling is a classic nonpareil pattern, which is created by drawing a comb or a stylus through the water bath to create a zig-zag pattern and then combed perpendicular to that with a fine comb to create the lovely small arches seen here. This particular pattern was created using neutrals with small pops of brighter oranges, yellows, greens, and blues. The colors are subtle and play nicely with the rich brown leather of the quarter binding. The slipcase is covered in the same paper.

The book is a facsimile edition of The Book of Thel by William Blake. This edition mimics as closely as possible the original edition of The Book of Thel, right down to the paper. It was published in 1965 by the Trianon Press for the William Blake Trust.

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-- Alice, Special Collections Department Manager

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Fore Edge Friday

This week’s #Fore Edge Friday example is a 3-volume set of The Poetical Works of William Cowper printed in Chiswick by Charles Whittingham for the London publisher William Pickering in 1843. The volumes are bound in gold-tooled and stamped calf skin and all edges and endpapers are marbled in what is called a Nonpareil pattern. 

According to the University of Washington’s site on Patterned Papers, the “ pattern is created when the desired colors are dropped sequentially onto the bath using some sort of implement to regulate the drop sizes. . . .  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).”

As we have mentioned before, when marbling the edges of a book, the text block is clamped tightly shut, and once dipped, the excess fluid is blown or shaken off quickly to prevent it from running into the book. Once dry, the marbled edges are burnished.

The publisher William Pickering thought of himself as a modern-day Aldus Manutius because of his well-printed (thanks to the Whittinghams’ Chiswick Press), pocket-sized, and carefully-edited editions. Pickering even used Aldus’s famous anchor and dolphin printer’s mark with the Latin phrase Aldi Discip Anglus (the English Disciple of Aldus), as can be seen here on the title page. This set forms part of Pickering’s famous 57-volume series “The Aldine Edition of the British Poets.” Our Cowper set is a second edition, the first being published in 1830. The engraved frontispiece portrait of William Cowper is by Henry Robinson. 

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Fore Edge Friday

Here are some nonpareil bindings, edges, and endpapers for some nonpareil (e.g., unparalleled) Historical Sketches of Statesmen Who Flourished in the Time of George III by Henry, Lord Brougham, the second edition printed in three volumes in London by William Clowes and Sons for Charles Knight & Co., 1839-43. The volumes are half-bound in gold-stamped and blind-tooled calf skin with cover papers, edges, and endpapers marbled in what the University of Washington’s site on Patterned Papers identifies as a Nonpareil pattern. We have described the process for making this pattern in a previous post.

The author, Henry Peter Brougham, 1st Baron Brougham and Vaux (1777-1868), was a prolific writer on science, philosophy, and history, and published this set after his stint as Lord High Chancellor of Great Britain (1830-34). The volumes are dedicated to his wife Mary Anne Eden, 1st Baroness Brougham and Vaux (1785–1865). 

The set is replete with with engravings of its subjects and each volume bears a frontispiece of a statesman. Shown here are the frontispiece portraits of William Pitt, 1st Earl of Chatham (volume 1) engraved by William Holl the Younger after an engraving by Edward Fisher from a painting by Richard Brompton, and George Washington (volume 2) engraved by William Humphrys after a painting by Gilbert Stuart. Despite the prominence of Washington’s portrait as the frontispiece to volume 2, Brougham only spends five pages on him. Nevertheless, he calls Washington “the greatest man of our own or of any age. . . . It will be the duty of the Historian and the Sage in all ages to let no occasion pass of commemorating this illustrious man; and until time shall be no more will a test of the progress which our race has made in wisdom and in virtue be derived from the veneration paid to the immortal name of Washington!”

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