Make 18th Century Marbled Paper

Add 2 tablespoons of alum and mix well.

Make 18th century marbled paper.

Make sure to mark the side that you sprayed because it can be hard to tell once it s dried. To save money binders started to use marbled or decorated paper sides. Sewing is now on recessed cords to give the spine a smooth appearance increasing the type of decoration which could be used. Throughout the 18th and early 19th centuries marbled papers were the endpapers of choice for finer bindings.

Through several centuries people have applied marbled materials to a variety of. Paper marbling is a method of aqueous surface design which can produce patterns similar to smooth marble or other kinds of stone. The patterns are the result of color floated on either plain water or a viscous solution known as size and then carefully transferred to an absorbent surface such as paper or fabric. The first instance of double marbling was seen in the 17th century.

Back then a tree resin based surfactant was dropped into a pan of water. The golden age of marbling. Lay flat to dry. A double marble is created when after the first desired pattern is completed and the paper dried the same paper is again treated with alum and marbled with the second pattern over the top of the first.

Fill a spray bottle with warm water. First prep your paper. We used rag paper paste and leather so these books should weather time as good as 18th century books have. Let the mixture cool and spray a thin layer onto your cotton paper.

Muira pgs 120 121. The oldest known form of paper marbling called suminagashi which translates to floating ink originated in japan around the 10th century though historians believe that it could be even older than that. Elaboration and simplicity binders began to make shortcuts in the binding process to both save money and increase production. Following the lead of france and germany other european countries began marbling papers around the mid 18th century.

The uses of paper marbling. Marbling lore has suggested loring that it was discovered when a marbler s assistant who was nursing a hangover and had shaky hands laid the paper into the bath to pull up a finished paper and as a consequence of the unsteady hands pulled a pattern with the linear gradated lines characteristic of this pattern. A double marble is created when after the first desired pattern is completed and the paper dried the same paper is again treated with alum and marbled with the second pattern over the top of the first. How to make marbled paper.

The first instance of double marbling was seen in the 17th century. Muira pgs 120 121. The spanish pattern was created at the beginning of the 17th century. Well made 18th century books fare surprisingly better than many 19th century books due to the use of rag paper over wood pulp paper.