In this 1671 painting from Hubert van Ravesteijn we see an exclusively designed paper packet leaning against a clay pipe, ready for consumption in a tavern.
In order to sell small units of tobacco, paper was needed: used papers and freshly printed papers. Zoom in:
@dbellingradt@histodons The #Neolatin poet Jacobus Balde SJ (1604-1668) wrote a satire against the abuse of tobacco in which you've also got a reference to paper as wrapping material for tobacco:
"Exin, membranâ positâ, vis magna Tabaci, / Nimirum niger atque ingens evolvitur anguis." (Tab. 10,26-27).
(Context: tobacco smokers unpack the tobacco and once the paper is taken off, black tobacco appears like a snake).
🔖 Most recent contribution on early modern tobacco literature probably is Kühlmann, Wilhelm. ‘Schreckensvision oder Drogenfreuden: Kontroverse Perspektiven der spätbarocken lateinischen und deutschen Tabaklyrik: Der Nordhauser Gymnasialrektor Johann Joachim Meier versus Johann Christian Günthers studentisches “Lob des Knaster-Tobacks” (1718)’. Daphnis 51, no. 4 (20 September 2023): 563–632. https://doi.org/10.1163/18796583-12340095.
There is a paper story to this painting from 1672 waiting to be told. Meet Jan Berckheyde's "A Notary in His Office" highlighted in 5 steps - a thread for friends of #paperhistory and #mediahistory of #EarlyModernEurope, and for #histodons in general. Expect a view into the inky paper states of Europe, a paper age dealing also with waste papers, fresh paper sheets waiting to be used, a high paper demand, and some document bags literally full of used papers. Let's roll @histodons
@histodons Wherever paper was used, waste paper could also be found. Here, in detail no. 5 paper leftovers, waste papers, are lying on the floor next to a used quill. The presence of fresh unused papers, written upon "used" papers, and waste papers, in one scene remind #histodons of the material life of hand-made paper in early modern Europe: it was produced, it was used, and it was recycled - often to fresh 'new' paper. #EarlyModernEurope was a paper age with #recycling rhythms.
This is how a page from a medieval #manuscript looks when its original text had been scraped off by someone, overwritten with a new text, and then later, a 19th-century scholar discovered the #palimpsest and tried to make the undertext's ink visible again by painting the page with chemical reagents.
I love book curses. Were they just an English thing or did all languages do it?
A fave:
“If anyone take away this book, let him die the death; let him be fried in a pan; let the falling sickness and fever seize him; let him be broken on the wheel, and hanged. Amen.”
@histodons@sharporg As an author you should more than encourage your publisher to submit copies of your book to SHARP (and elsewhere). Some publishers just do not send books. For example, in the last two years, not one book from the series "Library of the Written Word" (Brill) appeared in front of the jury members. So choose your publisher wisely. Submitting free copies to win a prize or an award is, in my opinion, part of the support you want to get for your book.
@dbellingradt@histodons irgend eine Idee, wann dies passiert sein könnte? Gibt es ähnlich beraubte Sammelbände in der Sammlung oder ist dies ein Einzelfall?
But do and will AI text generators stop using old texts, let's say digitized #earlymodern print editions, when these prints still feature the contemporary copyright right advise on the title pages?
Like here: "nicht nach zu drucken" (do not to re-print!).
Run, early modern postal horse with your messenger sitting on top blowing the post horn, run. @histodons
You see a video of the identical printed image used in the 1670s on the title page of the Nuremberg “Wochentliche Ordinari Post-Zeitung”. Re-used Woodblock, here we go. #bookhistory #histodons#newshistory
3 layers of printed paper.
2 people undressing.
1 sundial made with an arrow stuck in an ass.
That's entertainment in 1629 Germany.
You see a special #broadside criticizing the so-called Alamodismus (à la mode), a (French) fashion orientated lifestyle under critic in German speaking Europe. Single-sheet items rarely had 2 extra layers of paper. Bonus feature: the Latin text at end is in mirror writing, so the reader needed to hold the print to a mirror to get it. @histodons#histodons
On the painting with the title "The Alchemist" from the Flemish Mattheus van Helmont, circa mid seventeenth century, are many uses and abuses of #earlymodern paper products reflected in the details. I will address 7 of these paper issues in the thread. Bonus for #Alchemy friends: a large écorché figure, a distillation apparatus over a fire, and metal working assistants.
Enjoy.
Spot the difference: on the left, the copperplate print is hand-coloured after the print run, and on the right no extra work is done. Colouring prints was a thing in #earlymodern Europe. Guess which version was more expensive - and sold better?
@dbellingradt@histodons Als "Malen nach Zahlen" verpackt, wären die Drucke sicher zum Verkaufsschlager geworden. Es ist alles nur eine Frage der richtigen Werbekampagne.
@dbellingradt@histodons
Even some early movie films were hand coloured. All those tiny frames!
Though there was RGB colour film at the end of the Victorian age an exposure was 20 minutes. It wasn't till there was CYM layered film that colour movies were possible.
I think before 1742 China was doing coloured prints using multiple wood blocks.
Nitric acid was 14th C, or maybe 10th C. But using it for silver nitrate photos was 19th C.
This painting by Peter Cramer is rich in detail, dear #histodons - peppercakes, street selling activities in an early modern European urban setting, broadsheets glued to a wall, etc.
But what on earth is the highlighted child transporting on its shoulders? A wooden box full of what? Your help is appreciated! @histodons
@dbellingradt
Never mind the box. Until I zoomed in I thought it was a giant rat walking on its hind legs. That's a very ambiguous hat, kid. @histodons