Paper imitating leather

In my last blogpost, I wrote about a Victorian binding which sought to imitate polished walnut. This week, I wanted share another paper, one from earlier in the nineteenth century, and from Germany, which was also used to mimic burr wood veneers or, on books, tree calf. It’s called Wurzelmarmorpapier (lit. ‘root marbled paper’) and was a late eighteenth-century invention. (The book illustrated here, Dinter’s Leben, von ihm selbst beschrieben, dates from 1829.) Despite its name, it was not produced using a marbling process, but a highly skilled mix of sprinkle and trickle techniques to create the desired effect.

For more details on this and other books I shall be exhibiting at the Boston International Antiquarian Book Fair next week, please click here.