Blue paper : the overlooked history of a drawing, printing and writing material, 1400-1600 / Thea Burns.

Main entry:

Burns, Thea, author.

Title & Author:

Blue paper : the overlooked history of a drawing, printing and writing material, 1400-1600 / Thea Burns.

Publication:

London : Archetype Publications, 2025.
©2025.

Description:

x, 158 pages : color illustrations, maps, facsimiles ; 25 cm

Notes:
Includes bibliographical references (pages 135-158).
Sources and methods -- Early modern European blue papermaking: fibres and colorants -- Making and distinguishing early modern blue papers -- Drawings on blue paper: the fifteenth century -- Drawings on blue paper: the sixteenth century -- Blue book text blocks, notebooks, album pages and wrapping paper.

Summary:

"This book studies the early modern phenomenon of the increasing production and consumption of blue-hued paper, a material used widely in Italy as a drawing, writing and printing support as well as an ephemeral wrapping. Until recently researchers overlooked blue paper as an object of curiosity and worthy of study, often judging that, because of its assumed less refined fabrication and mottled colour compared to the finest contemporary white papers, it was a poor-quality product of lowly function and no particular interest. Close looking, a method of visual examination used regularly by a wide range of professional disciplines, is used here to examine a selection of surviving paper artefacts from the period c.1400-c.1600. Combined with a reconsideration of the extant documentary sources and placed in a broad historically-based synchronic context, this book presents new information and interpretations to enrich the nascent blue paper corpus."-- Back cover.

ISBN:

9781916642072 (paperback)
1916642071 (paperback)

Subject:

Paper Europe History.
Papermaking.
Drawing materials Europe History.
Papeterie.
Dessin Europe Matériel Histoire.
papermaking.
1400-1599

Holdings:

Location: Library main 319451
Call No.: 319451
Copy: 1
Status: Available

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