Parchment & Paper
The substrate. Animal skin scraped, stretched and limed into vellum; paper travelling from Han China through Samarkand and Baghdad to Fabriano and then everywhere; rag pulp, watermarks, the mill, and the acid-paper disaster that is quietly destroying most of what was printed after 1850.
Part of Books
46 moments in this segment.
- - Bifolium Excised from a Carolingian Gradual. 9th century. gold and silver ink on purple parchment. Cleveland Museum of Art, c. 830–60. This is a reproduction of the object itself, not a modern photograph of a building.
- - Magna Carta deposited in Congressional Library for duration of war. Washington, D.C., Nov. 28. The most cheris. Magna Carta, sealed at Runnymede in 1215; several original engrossments and many later facsimiles survive.
- - Peacock-shaped Hand Washing Device (recto); Text Page, Arabic Prose (verso). ). Syria, Damascus, Mamluk Period, 14th Century. opaque watercolor and gold on paper. Cleveland Museum of Art, 1315. This is a reproduction of the object itself, not a modern photograph of a building.
- - The Altar and the Book, Lake Tana Earth Church, Ethiopia. An Ethiopian Christian manuscript in Ge’ez, written on goatskin parchment and bound in the distinctive Ethiopian wooden-board style.
- - Ethiopia Aksum MonksPresentingTheBible. An Ethiopian Christian manuscript in Ge’ez, written on goatskin parchment and bound in the distinctive Ethiopian wooden-board style.
- - 1823 Marbled paper from Amsterdam with Library of Congress bookplate page 2. 1823 Marbled paper from Amsterdam with Library of Congress bookplate
- - The Library of Congress, Washington. Smithmeyer & Pelz, architect. [Library of Congress, Washington, D.C.] [February 14, 1893] 1 drawing: ink and graphite on linen; sheet 73 x 126 cm. Notes: Title devised by Library staff. Sheet no. 533. Original drawing number and classification: 533/D (Ironwork). Subjects: Library of Congress Thomas Jefferson Building (Washington, D.C.)--1890-1900. Ironwork--1890-1900. Domes--1890-1900. Lanterns
- - The Library of Congress, Washington, a second view. Smithmeyer & Pelz, architect. [Library of Congress, Washington, D.C.] [1893] 1 drawing: ink on linen; in folder 102 x 152 cm. Notes: Title devised by Library staff. Caption on drawing: "Plaster and stuccowork. Reading room, dome & lantern." Sheet no. 615. Original drawing number and classification: 615/F (Plaster & stucco work). Original materials served by appointment only. Subjects: Library o
- - How paper is made, 1940s. A period industrial film documenting the papermaking process as it stood in the 1940s.
- - A history of the printed word and papermaking, 1951. A 1951 documentary linking the history of writing and printing to the manufacture of paper.
- - Cattail-handmade-paper-3d-1280. Handmade paper, a sheet formed on a wire mould, showing chain lines or a watermark. Modern photograph.
- - Cattail-handmade-paper-1280. Handmade paper, a sheet formed on a wire mould, showing chain lines or a watermark. Modern photograph.
- - Scanning electron image of handmade paper from barrel cactus fibers - 100x. Handmade paper, a sheet formed on a wire mould, showing chain lines or a watermark. Modern photograph.
- - How parchment is made. BBC film for the Domesday programme following a skin through liming, scraping over the frame and drying into parchment.
- - MP2 LC Paper. Papermaking, the vats, moulds and machines that turn fibre into sheets. Modern photograph.
- - Papermaking and the history of paper. Papermaker Ray Tomasso lectures at CU Boulder Libraries on paper's history and manufacture.
- - Thimphu - Papierherstellung. Papermaking, the vats, moulds and machines that turn fibre into sheets. Modern photograph.
- - Machine à papier. Papermaking, the vats, moulds and machines that turn fibre into sheets. Modern photograph.
- - Photograph of Female Employees Operating Machines for Stiffening Paper - DPLA - 88763f6db7b3063d42bcb11a241d95. Papermaking, the vats, moulds and machines that turn fibre into sheets. Modern photograph.
- - Traditional Islamic papermaking demonstrated. Papermaker Radha Pandey presents and demonstrates Islamic-world papermaking, including the burnished, sized surfaces made for calligraphy.
- - Weird Tales and the pulp magazines. A history of the pulp magazine market that carried Lovecraft and Howard and shaped cheap popular reading.
- - Stretching a hide on the parchment frame. A practitioner shows the stretching and scraping stage that turns a limed skin into a writing surface.
- - A Stem History of paper production. Papermaking, the vats, moulds and machines that turn fibre into sheets. Modern photograph.
- - Parchment making: an Oxford introduction. Bodleian conservators Nicole Gilroy and Andrew Honey explain parchment production and conservation for Oxford manuscript students.
- - Fleur-de-lis watermark, 1787 Edinburgh Edition, Burns Poems. Handmade paper, a sheet formed on a wire mould, showing chain lines or a watermark. Modern photograph.
- - Traditional paper making Goang Xing Paper Mill Taiwan 01. Papermaking, the vats, moulds and machines that turn fibre into sheets. Modern photograph.
- - Making medieval parchment from a sheep hide. A full documentation of parchment production from a raw skin, following the medieval sequence of liming, dehairing, stretching and scraping.
- - Pulp magazines in the 1920s. A social history of the pulps as a mass reading format, covering their production, price and audience.
- - Washi in Japanese rare books. A short study of the paper used in Japanese rare books and how its structure differs from Western paper.
- - The tools of the parchment maker. Sara Charles lays out the lunellum, frame and other tools needed to turn a skin into parchment.
- - Hand papermaking through the centuries. International Paper Museum on how hand papermaking developed after paper reached Europe.
- - Parchment making, studied by scientists. The University of Namur's Pergamenum21 project shows parchment being made while physicists, chemists and historians analyse it.
- - The last parchment workshop in America. Business Insider visits Pergamena, where animal hides are still turned into writing parchment by hand.
- - 2021 PapiermuehleInnen. Papermaking, the vats, moulds and machines that turn fibre into sheets. Modern photograph.
- - Maintaining a 170-year-old Washington hand press. Sacramento History Museum shows the routine upkeep of an iron hand press.
- - What is lost when books are banned. A Washington Post report examining recent removals and the arguments used to justify them.
- - Silk Road papermaking revived in Uzbekistan. An AP report on the revival at Konigil of the Samarkand papermaking process that carried paper westward from China.
- - In search of Indo-Islamic papermaking. A Met lecture on the papermaking traditions of the Islamic world and South Asia, and fieldwork tracing surviving practice.
- - The 92-year-old who saved Turkish parchment. Business Insider profiles the craftsman who kept parchment-making alive in western Turkey.
- - Kurotani washi, used to restore the Louvre's works. A Kyoto workshop makes an exceptionally strong washi that conservators worldwide use for repairs.
- - Washington Post books editor John Williams. A newspaper books editor discusses reviewing, coverage decisions and how criticism interacts with the trade.
- - Hand papermaking demonstrated in a museum. A working papermaker forms sheets at the North Carolina Museum of Art and explains pulp preparation.
- - Parchment makers in present-day Ethiopia. A documentary on Ethiopian parchment production, an unbroken craft still supplying scribes and church manuscripts.
- - A washi papermaker working alone. A Japanese craftsman making washi single-handedly, filmed through the whole process from bark to dried sheet.
- - Making a limp parchment binding. A demonstration of the limp parchment binding that became widespread for cheaper books.
- - The seven-day parchment process. A craft documentary following the full traditional sequence from raw skin to finished writing surface.