Watermarks and What They Can Tell Us - ACS Publications

6 Watermarks and What They Can Tell Us T. L. GRAVELL

Downloaded by EMORY UNIV on April 11, 2016 | http://pubs.acs.org Publication Date: December 1, 1981 | doi: 10.1021/ba-1981-0193.ch006

305 Mansion Road, Wilmington, DE 19804

A watermark, when reproduced accurately, can give a possible date of composition and place of origin for the document on which it appears. Such information often will prove or disprove the authenticity of maps, prints, books, or manuscripts. Accurate copies of watermarks can be made in roomlight by exposing Dylux 503 to visible light and developing it with ultraviolet light.

he first researchers of early handmade paper relied on tracings to reproduce the various watermarks for study, a method that could produce only approximate copies no matter how much care was exercised. In 1960, beta-radiography came into use and for the first time, accurate watermark reproductions were available for study. The beta plate, while producing good prints, was very expensive. Although the time required to make a print has been reduced to an hour or less, in some cases, the cost is still so high that the plate is out of the reach of most researchers. With the use of a photosensitive paper known as Dylux 503 good, clear, and accurate reproductions can be had at a very low cost. Briefly, the process involves placing the watermarked paper and the Dylux 503 in very close contact and exposing the sheets to visible light, such as that of a super diazo fluorescent tube, for one to five minutes at a time. A blue daylight fluorescent tube will work; however, the time of exposure will be longer. Since the watermark creates a thinness in handmade paper, the visible light will pass through this thinness with greater intensity and thus nullify the yellow dye coating on the Dylux 503 sheet. The exposure time varies with the contents and thickness of each sheet. After exposure, the sheets are separated and the exposed Dylux is passed under a long-wave ultraviolet light. This ultraviolet irradiation causes the unaffected coating to turn a bright blue, thus forming an exact copy of the watermark (see Figures 1-4). Some care {

©

0065-2393/81 /0193-0057$05.00/0 1981 American Chemical Society

Williams; Preservation of Paper and Textiles of Historic and Artistic Value II Advances in Chemistry; American Chemical Society: Washington, DC, 1981.


58

PRESERVATION OF PAPER AND TEXTILES Π

Figure 1.

A Thomas Amies, Dave Mill watermark on wove paper, ca. 1811

must be used in handling Dylux 503, for while room light permits safe handling for up to five or ten minutes without this special paper losing effectiveness, sunlight will, in a very few minutes, cause it to lose its ability to react. The rapidity of making prints, the low cost, and the ability to be used in room light, which is a definite safety feature in handling manuscripts, make Dylux 503 a very useful tool in reproducing the watermarks of early handmade paper.

Figure 2. Post Horn by John Bicking, Chester County, Pennsylvania, on laid paper, ca. 1792



6.

GRAVELL

59

Watermarks

Figure 3. Eagle and crossedflagsof Henry Hudson, East Hartford, Connecticut, on laid paper, ca. 1830 Watermarks in early paper can be both very helpful and very disappointing. They can help by telling by whom and where the paper was made and are disappointing in that they cannot give us the exact date of when a document was composed originally. Two surveys have been made using eighteenth and nineteenth century documents from four libraries: The Morris Library of the University of Delaware, Eleutherian Mills Historical Library, Library of the Historical Society of Delaware, and the Henry Francis du Pont Winterthur Museum. A l l

Figure 4. Sheaf of wheat by John Matthews, Delaware County, Pennsylvania, on laid paper, ca. 1800



60

PRESERVATION OF PAPER AND TEXTILES II

of the documents counted contained dated watermarks and an original date of use. The first survey was made in 1974 using over one hundred pieces and the second was done in 1977 with over two hundred items. The first survey showed that 96.1% of the dates of use, and the second showed that 98.8% of the dates of use, were within nine years of the date shown in the watermark. Records are being kept so future surveys can be made as additional dated watermarks are found. While only seven dated watermarks between the years 1596 and 1681 were found in the collection of the Folger Shakespeare Library, all had been used within a six-year period. Unfortunately, the French-dated watermarks of this same era (eighteenth and nineteenth centuries) cannot be used. The edict of 1739 that set forth the terms under which French paper could be made had one section so worded that French papermakers believed that French paper was to be watermarked with the date 1742. Therefore, all French paper carried this date for a number of years. I have seen only one letter watermarked 1742, which was signed by Voltaire, and dated 1742; the item is in the John Boyd Thacher Autograph collection at the Library of Congress. Other manuscripts with the 1742 watermark date have been found with dates of use from twenty-eight to seventy-one years later. There are a number of ways in which watermarks can help with a date; for instance, if the paper has a dated watermark, you know that it could not have been used before that date. A prompt book in the Folger Shakespeare Library has a written date of 1784 while the pages are watermarked 1799, which in turn indicates the contents were copied from an earlier work. Dated watermarked paper, when in printed books, is a great help in establishing the date of publication. For example, a volume of John Gay's Fables, the title page of which shows the published date of 1793, is on paper watermarked " W Balston-1810." It would seem that the original plate was used over again perhaps to cut costs or the book is a pirated edition. In the period before there was any means of mechanical copying, all such work was done by hand and there are a number of these copied letters, deeds, identures, land surveys, and maps filed as originals in our archives. There is a letter dated Valley Forge, 1778, and signed Geo. Washington that is on paper watermarked "Smith & Alnutt1815." Washington died in 1799. In Henry Toulis's book History of Romish Treasons (Folger Shakespeare Library copy), published in London during 1671, there is a description of how a letter, reportedly written by James 6th of Scotland, was proved a forgery by the "mark in the paper." Restrikes from original plates often are found. Charles Blaskowitz's map Bay of Narragansett dated 1777 can be found on paper dated "J Whatman-1794." A political satire cartoon by Thomas Tegg with a written date of 1812 has been seen on paper dated 1823 by the watermark. Williams; Preservation of Paper and Textiles of Historic and Artistic Value II Advances in Chemistry; American Chemical Society: Washington, DC, 1981.


6.

GRAVELL

Watermarks

61

Watermarks also can help with a date by associating one watermark with another. During the 1600s, when watermarks stood for both the size and quality of paper, papermakers used the pot as a symbol for ordinary quality paper 12 X 15 inches and a Cardinal's hat, pillars, or a Crozier horn for the same size paper, but of a better quality. A document that had the watermark of a Cardinal's hat and the initials E.L.P. was undated; however, the watermark of a pot with the same initials (E.L.P.) was known to be on a letter dated 1651. Since the same papermaker no doubt made both sheets, it seemed safe to assume that the undated document also had originated in the 1650s. Later, another manuscript was found with the watermark of a Cardinal's hat initialed E.L.P. and was dated 1658. There is another type of watermark that is often a help and that is a mark left in the paper by the stitches that joined the endless wire screen used on the early paper machines. These marks are in the form of a series of short dashs or a ropelike line of marks across the sheet. Since papermaking machinery did not come into being until after 1804, 1804 is the earliest such marks could appear in paper. These stitch marks can give only a starting point, so they must be treated with caution. The endless belt that created them remained in use for a number of years, so such marks could have a long life. At the Henry Francis du Pont Winterthur Museum, there are two manuscripts so marked. On one, #77X349, dated 1831, the stitch marks appear very uniform, as though they had been sewn by a machine; the second, #77X290, dated 1841, has stitches that are uneven in both size and placement, which would seem to indicate they were handsewn and pre-dated the 1831 type. While on the subject of machine-made paper, it might be well to mention the dandy roll and the watermarks it produced. The dandy roll is said to have come about because of a dislike of the machine-made wove paper, many customers wanted the older laid type of paper. The dandy roll was invented and patented by the Englishmen John and Christopher Phipps in 1825 and the first rolls for sale were made by John Marshall Co. of England in 1826. The Marshall Co. was purchased in 1969 by W. Green Son & Waite Ltd. The roll was shaped as a cylinder made of a wire screen stretched over wooden ribs. The horizontal wires of the screen made the laid line effect and the wooden ribs that ran at 90° to the horizontal wires created the chain lines. The paper pulp on the endless screen of the machine was carried under the dandy roll, which then made the impression in the paper. The first dandy rolls were unwatermarked, but in 1839, William Joyson, an English papermaker, sewed the first watermark on the roll at his mill in Kent. The Americanmade dandy rolls were not watermarked until 1847; this date means little, as English-made dandy rolls were in use in this country from the first. Williams; Preservation of Paper and Textiles of Historic and Artistic Value II Advances in Chemistry; American Chemical Society: Washington, DC, 1981.


62

PRESERVATION OF PAPER AND TEXTILES II

Knowledge of when and where a papermill was located is as important for dating as are the watermarks. There is a map of lower Delaware, hand drawn and dated 1702, which is on paper with a Gilpin watermark. The Gilpin mill on the Brandywine did not start operations until 1787; thus, the map could not have been drawn on this paper in 1702. Another such instance is a Saur Bible, printed in 1762 (and bound at Efrata, Lancaster County, Pennsylvania) on paper with the watermarks of and the "Arms of Virginia," watermarks used by William Parks of Williamsburg, Virginia. William Parks died at sea in 1750 on a trip to England and his mill was sold in 1752. There are no records to show that the mill operated beyond that date. It seems unlikely that any supply of paper made by Parks lasted for ten or twelve years, perhaps Saur (he was also a papermaker) or Conrad Schutz, who had worked for Parks, purchased the molds and brought them to Pennsylvania for use in his own mill. In conclusion, watermarks very often tell us what a document is by telling us what it isn't. RECEIVED October 23, 1979.


Watermarks and What They Can Tell Us - ACS Publications

Recommend Documents