Decorated papers from the 18th century
Decorated papers from the 18th centuryIn this Christmas period, which should be the lightest and most festive of the year, we want to temporarily abandon refined erudition to enjoy the fragile, delightful examples of an ancient ‘minor’ decorative art preserved among the Casanatense collections.
We are referring to decorated papers, frequently used as endpapers for bindings, as covering plates for half-leather bindings, as bindings for pamphlets or volumes of minimal thickness and essential components of a taste in bookbinding in which the desire for the book as an object of value was not lost even in front of the file preserved as an archive document.
Product of oriental origin, the famous Turkish cards, spread rapidly in Europe since the century. XV: in Italy paper decorated with woodcut and glue was appreciated and produced, France was the homeland of marbled paper, Germany of embossed gold paper and England of velvet paper; however, the frequent cultural and commercial exchanges meant that cards of all types were copied and manufactured everywhere with inexhaustible richness and imagination.
Since the breadth of the topic forces us to make a choice, we will focus our attention on the less widespread, but more colourful, sumptuous and therefore also used in small domestic decorations typology: golden papers. 
The production of this product, which was very popular in the eighteenth century, was concentrated in the German cities of Augsburg, Nuremberg, Fürth, Frankfurt, Worms and, given the great commercial demand, was protected by imperial imprint privileges, which however could not prevent its diffusion in France, where, however, a minute decoration was appreciated, preferably with small gold stars on a white background; and in Italy, where the baroque taste imported from Germany continued to triumph. The first to obtain the imperial privilege for this manufacture in 1698 were Abraham Mieser, who manufactured a metallic paper printed in gold and silver; and Mathias Frölich, who added polychromy to this map on a vast iconographic sample.
The reasons why this applied art had Augsburg as its birthplace and center of development are easily deduced. City of flourishing economy due to its commercial position, mediator between central and northern Europe, contact with the Levant through Italy, Augsburg was a place where culture, art and craftsmanship had been able to establish strong and profitable relationships with production needs and mercantilist. It thus qualified as the place of choice for goldsmiths, silversmiths, designers, engravers and printer-publishers.
In fact, it is from the participation of the experiences of all these professionals that a technically complex product was born, of high artisan quality, compliant with the taste of eighteenth-century buyers and therefore of vast and lasting success on the market. In relation to the manufacturing processes and types of golden paper, it should be noted that three fundamental types of paper are collected under this generic term:
with uniform metallization (with a smooth surface, chocolate-like), wood-printed gold (bronzefirnispapier, not in relief, from a xylographic matrix) and embossed gold (goldbrokatpapier, in relief or embossed, from an intaglio matrix).
In the first case, a resinous mordant was applied to the paper surface to which sheets of beaten metal, silver or gold were adhered, probably while hot, depending on the effect to be obtained. The problem of the high cost of noble metals was overcome both with the use of sheets with a high percentage of copper, bronze or tin and with the more widespread technique of brush application of metal powders bound by a rubbery adhesive solution; this was left to dry and then the treated side of the paper was smoothed with a flint or a bone rod to increase its shine. As with all gilded papers, the quality of the metals used, or alloys, was decisive for the quality of the final result and even more so for its conservation up to the present day. In fact, oxidation processes have taken root with greater virulence on products likely destined for general distribution, whose packaging had been less accurate and therefore certainly cheaper. 
This uniform and smooth metalized paper, usually produced in small-format sheets, was rarely used in bookbinding both due to its high cost and relative fragility and for aesthetic reasons, preferring its use as lining paper for precious furniture and furnishings sacred or for applying cut-outs on decorative elements to which you wanted to give a ‘poor’ or even homemade gilding.
To obtain the woodcut golden paper, with the German term Bronzefirnispapier, a sheet of paper was used, previously colored with a brush in a solid color or with polychrome spots, on which an ornamental motif was imprinted with the press, previously engraved on a wooden matrix and inked with a varnish mixed with shellac in which copper, bronze or tin powder had been dissolved. The effect obtained was that of a colored sheet on which metallic decorations mostly consisting of phytomorphic interweavings, seeded or grilled stood out.
For embossed golden paper, with the German term Goldbrokatpapier, the process was more complex, but the result was certainly more eye-catching due to the exaltation of the brilliance of the metals and the greater visibility of the design due to the relief. The term ’embossing’ derives from the French gaufre, which indicates a wafer obtained by cooking a sweet pastry between two red-hot iron moulds; this confectionery product, mainly Christmas if enriched with cooked must, black pudding and chopped dried fruit, is also typical of some Italian regions. In Abruzzo, for example, they are called ferratelle, thin biscuits whose dough is poured between two metal moulds, engraved in hollow with geometric or floral designs, preheated and then clamped together until the dough is cooked. As a final result, the ready biscuit bears the design of the plates in relief on the surface.
Embossing was a relief printing process that was very popular in the eighteenth century for decorating paper, leather and fabrics used for luxury packaging ranging from clothing, furnishings, objects, from fans to wallets, to powder boxes, to the caskets, to the bindings, to the chairs, to the armchairs. Often these papers, so inviting for their colors and designs, were used for the entertainment of children who used them to decorate small sets for theatres, sacred shrines and to add splendor to home nativity scenes.
The first manufacturing operation consisted in drawing the chosen ornamental motif on paper which was then deeply engraved on a thick copper or brass plate; on this matrix, pre-heated and placed on a chalcographic press, a thin golden or silver metallic sheet, a sheet of paper of suitable thickness, previously colored in a solid color or with polychrome spots and slightly dampened, and a felt were placed in this order. protective; the pressure of the press rollers, the heat of the matrix and the humidity of the paper simultaneously determined the adhesion of the metal to the sheet and the relief impression of the decorative motif.
To be precise, if the design had been engraved in relief on the matrix, on the sheet the motif appeared golden and sunken while the colored background of the sheet appeared raised; if, on the contrary, the design had been engraved in the hollow, the motif was colored and highlighted on a golden and hollowed background.
The sheet, freed from the press and the felt, was left to dry, then dusted to eliminate excess gilding, touched up lightly with a brush with metallic paint if there was a defect in the adhesion of the sheet, and finally delicately polished with the usual methods. .
The iconographic apparatus of the embossed papers was rightly suited to the sumptuousness of the result to be obtained, often simultaneously presenting a mixture of Renaissance elements – therefore grotesques, masks, putti, candelabra, festoons – and those iconographic motifs of Indian, Persian and Chinese origin which became popular from the middle of the seventeenth century until the first half of the eighteenth century: the arabesques, the large floral displays with tulips, carnations and peonies, the vegetal scrolls full of fruit and exotic birds, the hunting scenes in oriental costume, the fights of animals, chinoiserie. The dazzling tones of red, turquoise, orange, purple, fuchsia, combined with the splendor of gold, recall sumptuous Flemish tapestries and imitated the brocades and damasks of the time with their complicated designs of still baroque taste.
As the eighteenth century progressed, the ornamental modules were gradually limited to the phytomorphic element, reducing in size but becoming crowded, schematizing the contours and inserting small geometric decorations, until obtaining a final effect similar to a dense, and sometimes heavy, sown.
The producers of decorated papers whose marking can be identified in the Casanatense sheets, or whose editorial paternity can be hypothesized, are all from the German area and among the best-known names are those of Simon Haichele, Maria Barbara Keck, Joseph Friedrich Leopold , Apollonia Maistetter, Georg Reimund, Johann Michael Schibecher, Georg Christoph Stoy.
What most aroused curiosity during the search for information on the workshops of these artisans is the observation of female protagonism in family business strategies which often determined the existence of printing works, the main asset of dowry and hereditary transmissions. There is a frequent case of printing companies being passed down from father to daughter, even from uncle to nephew, inherited from the first spouse, brought as a dowry to the second husband and then passed on to the daughters who in turn were the wives of printer-publishers. Thus, marital and kinship ties established between families of printers have favored the transmigration from one company to another of engraved branches and wood, of designs, samples and printing privileges, settling competitive conflicts and determining the strengthening and expansion on the market of workshops.
While France and England remained substantially faithful to the use of marbled papers, gilded papers, as well as in Germany, met with great success in Italy, in particular in Florence, in Rome (with Egidio Petit and Angelo Topai), in Venice, where the La Fenice theater was completely upholstered inside with embossed golden paper, used in this case for furnishings.
The main producers were the famous Remondini of Bassano who in 1746 obtained from the Venetian government the privilege of printing, among other things, gold and silver paper; this sort of protectionist measure against imports certainly served to increase local production, but it certainly did not solve the problem of supplying the raw material for our artisans, the metallized sheets produced in Germany in the factories near Augsburg.
Read more:
Papers decorated in the 18th century bookbinding from the collections of the Casanatense Library edited by Piccarda Quilici. Rome, Ist.Poligrafico and State Mint, 1992