Jaarboek voor Nederlandse Boekgeschiedenis. Jaargang 21

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Summaries/Samenvattingen

Ed van der Vlist - Boeken voor het kapittel. Schenkingen in het ‘Registrum capituli Naeldwicensis’

Het Sint-Adriaanskapittel van Naaldwijk, dat in 1307 werd gesticht, vergaarde in de loop der jaren ettelijke boeken. Talrijke dekens, kanunniken en andere weldoeners vermaakten hun bezittingen aan het kapittel, en daaronder bevonden zich ook geschriften. Een vijftiende-eeuwse lijst met boektitels werpt enig licht op de bibliotheek van het kapittel. Deze lijst is opgenomen in een register dat is afgedwaald van het kapittelarchief en dat tegenwoordig wordt bewaard in de Koninklijke Bibliotheek in Den Haag. Gecombineerd met gegevens uit andere archiefstukken geeft de lijst een indruk van wie wanneer welke boeken aan het kapittel van Naaldwijk heeft geschonken.

De boekenlijst in het Haagse register is in verschillende fasen tot stand gekomen. Op het eerste gezicht lijkt een handvol schrijvers eraan te hebben bijgedragen, maar bij nadere beschouwing blijken dat er waarschijnlijk slechts twee te zijn geweest. Vermoedelijk waren dat de dekens Jan Aarndsz. en Hendrik Robbrechtsz., die leiding gaven aan het kapittel tussen 1384 en 1460. Met de aanleg van de lijst is in of kort na 1409 begonnen. De jongste toevoeging betreft het legaat van een kanunnik die stierf in 1445; een boek dat in 1454 aan het kapittel werd vermaakt, is niet meer in de lijst opgenomen. Er komen dan ook geen gedrukte werken in de boekenlijst voor.

Bij twaalf boeken verwijst de lijst expliciet naar de testamenten van drie geestelijken die aan de Naaldwijkse kerk waren verbonden. Deze wilsbeschikkingen dateren uit 1408, 1404 en 1414, en de betreffende boeken kwamen in de bibliotheek van het kapittel terecht bij de dood van de testateurs in respectievelijk 1409, 1406 en 1422. Enkele van deze boeken zijn niet in de testamenten genoemd, kennelijk omdat de legatoren deze naderhand hebben verworven. Tien items op de lijst bereikten het kapittel langs onbekende weg; hiervan is geen testamentaire beschikking opgesteld of deze is niet overgeleverd.

De boekenlijst biedt een momentopname van de kapittelbibliotheek van Naaldwijk in de eerste helft van de vijftiende eeuw. Zij bevat niet alle boeken van het kapittel: de liturgische boeken, bestemd voor gebruik tijdens de mis of het koorgebed, ontbreken geheel - die bevonden zich ongetwijfeld elders in de kerk. Wat wel is vermeld, is over het algemeen samen te vatten als populaire theologische en kanoniekrechtelijke literatuur, met een enkele ‘bijzondere’ uitschieter, zoals een Nederlandstalige Bestiarius - precies wat valt te verwachten van een verzameling boeken die is bijeengebracht door individuele kanunniken met een praktische inslag en een veelal juridische achtergrond.

De middeleeuwse librije van Naaldwijk belandde bij de troebelen in 1572 op de brandstapel. Geen enkel boek bleef gespaard.

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Mart van Duijn - From the margins to the core. Late medieval marginalia as a source for a history of the Delft Bible (1477)

The historical reader and his reading habits can be approached and studied in different ways. One of the most direct ways is by concentrating on handwritten notes left in books, in the margins but also on flyleaves. Such notes are found in all kinds of books, including Bibles. This contribution focuses on marginalia and other annotations written in extant copies of the Delft Bible of 1477. This first printed Dutch Bible is a much admired and studied object. Some issues concerning this Bible however, have never been addressed, or only inadequately, such as the ownership and use shortly after publication. In this contribution a brief reception history of the Delft Bible is given on the basis of marginalia and other notes in surviving copies.

The reader has an essential role in assigning meaning to books; books come to life only by interaction with owners, readers and users. This can be referred to as the core of book history, which can be approached by studying the margins of books. The research into marginalia and other annotations really took off after the publication of Anthony Grafton's and Lisa Jardine's groundbreaking article ‘“Studied for Action”: How Gabriel Harvey read his Livy’. Since the publication of this article in 1990, the number of publications and projects that focus on marginalia has grown explosively. A recent addition is the website Annotated Books Online, which provides full access to annotated copies of early printed books. Although marginalia are by some still regarded with suspicion, these publications and projects have proven there is a world to be won.

The multitude of works on marginalia offers a range of different methods and approaches, which can be applied to study the Delft Bible. Ultimately 61 extant copies of this Bible have been recorded, offering an excellent corpus. The marginalia in these copies are roughly divided into two types: ownership marks and traces of use. Traces of use can be subdivided into annotations that interact with the text and those that are not connected to the text and function independently.

Of the 61 recorded surviving copies of the Delft Bible, 21 have late medieval ownership marks. These 21 copies contain 33 ownership marks. From the 33 inscriptions, 29 specific owners can be distilled. The information given in ownership marks can be analysed in various ways. With 24 copies in private ownership, it seems owning a Delft Bible was very much a private issue. Regarding the gender of owners it can be concluded most were female, with seventeen ownership marks, against nine male owners and three of whom gender is unknown. Ten of the 29 known owners can be seen as religious, also including the semi-religious such as beguines and lay brothers, and eighteen owners can be seen as lay. Of the 61 surviving copies recorded, 32 contain late medieval marginalia and annotations, of different kinds. They point to a multitude of uses, of which three can be distinguished best. These are the use of the Delft Bible as a guide for daily life, as a source of study and as a notebook for storing information.

Regarding the reading and use of books in the late Middle Ages there is no need to linger on assumptions based on prefaces and colophons; research should also focus on annotations in margins and on flyleaves. More and more methodologies and research tools are becoming available and several great researchers have proven that studying marginalia and other annotations provide valuable information for the field of book history. For the Delft Bible it has shown that ownership and use of this Bible in the Late Middle Ages is much more complex and dynamic than long has been assumed. Where the owners were initially identified as monasteries and wealthy citizens, we now know that they could be found spread across late medieval society, inside and outside monastery walls. With respect to the use of the Delft Bible nothing was known yet. On the basis of marginalia the same can be concluded as for ownership; the use of Delft Bibles was versatile, ranging from a resource for lessons for everyday life to a notebook for more worldly issues. Here, the focus is on one specific book, but extending the research methodology to other kinds of works should contribute to a better understanding of, or perhaps a more nuanced view on, historical readers and reading habits.

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Sylvia van Zanen - ‘Designationes plantarum, florum, fungorum, fructuum, bestiarum, &c. vivis coloribus’: The origin, function and appreciation of illustrations in Carolus Clusius’ botanical books

The botanical Renaissance of the sixteenth century was a revolution in word and image. This revolution was expressed especially in the publication of printed herbals with accurate illustrations and high-quality plant descriptions. In spite of the great interest that historians of science and art have taken in botanical illustrations, the function and appreciation of images by early modern botanists have hardly been studied. The article aims to provide a glimpse of the relationship between biological research, image culture and book production in the early modern period, based on the botanical works of Carolus Clusius (1526-1609), the founder of the Leiden botanical garden.

Clusius was one of the foremost botanists of the sixteenth century, whose work remained influential in later centuries. His books, devoted to newly discovered species of plants (and later animals) were all published by Christopher Plantin at Antwerp or his heirs, Jan 1 Moretus at Antwerp and Franciscus 1 Raphelengius at Leiden. These publications are lavishly illustrated: the two volume edition of his collected works (1601-1605) has no less than a thousand woodcuts.

Attention is paid to the origin and quality of the drawings and woodcuts in Clusius' books and posthumous work. His views of the function of illustrations in general are discussed as well. Clusius' standards for his descriptions of plants and animals, but also for the accompanying illustrations were very high. To him, text and image were of equal importance and should never, even in details, contradict one another. In this respect, he was ahead of his contemporaries.

Ideally, the designs for the woodcuts were made by an experienced artist under the supervision of the perfectionist botanist himself, in an intensive form of cooperation. The artist worked to the example of living plants or on the basis of dried specimens. An important source for the woodcuts were ‘designationes [...] vivis coloribus’, water colours drawn and coloured to life, including the famous collection now known as the ‘Libri picturati’. Sometimes, designs may have been made after drawings made by Clusius on his field trips.

The artist Peter vander Borcht from Malines is responsible for the production of tens, if not hundreds of the designs for the woodcuts in Clusius' works. In Frankfurt, Clusius worked together with an able artist, the son of Vergilius Solis. In his Leiden period it was probably Jacques ii de Gheyn who was responsible for the design of the woodcuts in the collected works.

It was impossible to maintain this way of working for all publications, especially in those cases when the travel-loving Clusius was abroad. This holds especially for the period when he lived in Vienna in the service of the Habsburg Emperor Maximilian ii. In those cases, Clusius had his plants drawn by local artists. In spite of the fact that he moved in high (court) circles, Clusius often found it difficult to find qualified artists who could draw the plants fast, accurately and using the right technique (i.e. water colour). The water colours were sent to the publisher, where they were transferred onto woodblocks for the woodcutter. Clusius often complained about the careless way this was done, and he was often dissatisfied with the result.

Almost nothing survives of the enormous collection of drawings and water colours that Clusius must have possessed. In all likelihood, they were auctioned directly after his death, as can be concluded from the surviving auction catalogue of his books. Recently however, some of the originals were rediscovered. It concerns both pen drawings and water colours of plants that Clusius himself had ordered and pictures that were sent to him from all over Europe by his large network. Partly, the pictures given to Clusius were made by professional artists, partly they are sketches by befriended botanists. All these images, including the less professional ones, served as a basis for the woodcuts in Clusius' publications. The various provenances of the pictures explain the heterogeneous style and quality of the woodcuts in Clusius' published works: forced by varying circumstances the botanist had to be satisfied with inferior illustrations.

Clusius' high demands led to books of high quality that were reprinted several times. His attitude caused tensions in the cooperation with publishers, painters and engravers. Plantin was regularly irritated by the continuous pressure put on him by the author, by his complaints on typesetting errors, missing indices and lists of errata, and by a perpetual flow of

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pieces of text that were to be inserted, even if a book had already been put on the press. By means of letters, original copy, surviving pictures and remarks in his publications, the relationship between publisher and author is exposed.

In conclusion, it can be stated that the unruly reality of early modern image and book production resulted in a very heterogenous handling of images, despite Clusius' attempts to set the rules of the game and thus to formulate a new concept of science. With regard to Clusius it can be said that the illustrations in his works, and therefore the shape of his knowledge, were to a large extent determined by his personal choices and his ‘scientific’ views. Often, however, he was overtaken by a reality characterised by a lack of financial means, time or able artists, or by not being able to supervise them. Probably, the realism of his publishers was an important inhibiting factor as well.

Ad Leerintveld - ‘Popular in manuscript and print’. Songs from the first quarter of the seventeenth century in the collection of the Koninklijke Bibliotheek in The Hague

This article deals with the interconnection of written and printed sources of Dutch songs. Examples from the important collections of handwritten songs from the first quarter of the seventeenth century in the Koninklijke Bibliotheek, the National Library of the Netherlands, are used to show that written and printed sources have to be studied together. In four categories: songs on single sheets, songs written on blank leaves in printed books, songs in alba amicorum and songs in entirely written songbooks, case studies prove that both media, handwriting and print, influence each other.

The first category is present with a song written on a single sheet of paper that satirises the decapitation of Johan van Oldenbarnevelt (1547-1619), the famous Grand Pensionary of the States of Holland and the most powerful politician in the Dutch Republic. In this song, entitled ‘Liedeken van de Hollantsche tuin’, Van Oldenbarnevelt is called ‘the gardener of Holland’ because his political and diplomatic way of acting secured the Republic (the ‘garden’) from invasion by the enemy. The sheet of paper with this song can be regarded as a pamphlet. The song even appears as a printed pamphlet; the tune for this ‘Liedeken’ is only preserved in a broadsheet from around 1600. The song is reprinted in Den herstelden Apollos Harp, a collection of songs that appeared in 1663 in Amsterdam. In this songbook the song is attributed to Reinier Telle, but he cannot be the author: Telle died in 1618 and cannot have witnessed Oldenbarnevelt's execution.

In the second case study the songbook of Elisabeth Reid is discussed. This beautiful book, bound in red velvet embroidered with silver thread, contains a printed edition of P.C. Hooft's Emblemata amatoria (Amsterdam, 1611) bound together with blank leaves. The first of six written songs at the end of this songbook is a French poem by Clément Marot (1496-1544): ‘Jeune beauté, bon esprit, bonne grace’. The Dutch composer Jan Pietersz. Sweelinck (1562-1621) set it to music, and it is very possible that this song became popular through the printed edition of the music by Sweelinck. In the album amicorum of Clara van Beers with contributions from 1599 to 1607 the song ‘Jeune beauté’ also appears.

Alba amicorum, and especially those kept by women, contain songs as is shown in the third case study. A large quantity of at least 28 chansons is to be found in the album amicorum of Margaretha van Duvenvoirde (1593-1660). In 1618 a certain J. van Berchem penned the song ‘Aux plaisirs, aux delices’ in her album, a song that became popular through the series of books with music for the lute by Gabriel Bataille (1575-1630), the Airs de différents autheurs mis en tablature de luth (Paris 1608-1613). As a tune, this song was used by Hooft e.g. for his songs ‘Amaril had ik haar uit uw tuitje’ and ‘Rozemond, hoort gij spelen noch zingen?’ Almost a quarter of the tunes Hooft applied for his songs are recorded in Bataille's Airs too.

Most songs in manuscript are preserved in the last category: manuscript songbooks. Two collections form the main object in this case study: the songbook by Isaac Massa (1586-1643) and a collection of songs mainly by P.C. Hooft. Isaac Massa, a well to do merchant from Haarlem is known for his very early contacts with Russia. As a merchant he gained the confidence of Czar Boris Godunov and his son Feodor ii and got into the position to act as a diplomat for the Dutch Republic. Massa started to collect songs in his songbook in the first decade of the seventeenth century. Obviously Massa

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allowed other people to copy songs from his booklet. A poem on fol. 23 warns the copier to be very careful: ‘That you shall copy all words and syllables accurately, and shall not shorten or lengthen there, so that neither the meaning nor the measure is violated’. Massa wrote many French songs in his songbook. The very first, ‘Cruelle departye / Malheureux jour / Que ne suis je sans vye / Ou sans Amour’ is known for its connection with the French king Henry iv, who is said to have used these words in a letter of farewell to his beloved Madame de Liancour. We encounter this song also in an album amicorum in the collection of the Koninklijke Bibliotheek.

It is striking that many songs in the written collection of Isaac Massa are known from the popular printed songbooks that appeared in the first decade of the seventeenth century. In Den nieuwen Lust-hof (1602) and Den bloemhof van de Nederlantsche jeucht (1608 and 1610) Massa found several examples of songs he added to his collection. Massa also copied Hooft's ‘Windeken daer het bosch aff drilt’. This song is the most popular contrafact of the seventeenth century. The Koninklijke Bibliotheek possesses a unique printed broadsheet with this song.

The second collection that is dealt with in the fourth category is a collection of songs by P.C. Hooft. This collection shows the same pattern as the songbook of Massa. Many songs are also printed in the songbooks mentioned above.

Resuming the four categories of handwritten songs, the conclusion must be that for the study of songs both media, manuscript and print, are important. Only by taking into account both media the popularity of songs (e.g. the songs by P.C. Hooft) can be satisfactorily studied. Manuscripts contain songs that circulate in printed editions and the other way around. In manuscripts we find songs that became popular through music books by Sweelinck or Bataille. It seems that these very music books were the sources for the tunes and songs the noblewomen collected in their alba amicorum. French music culture flourished around 1600 in the high society of the Netherlands.

Goran Proot - Het belang van ‘jobbing printing’. Een raamovereenkomst tussen de Gentse jezuïeten en de drukker Baudewijn Manilius voor het drukken van theaterprogramma's (1664)

Op 27 oktober 1664 sloten de jezuïeten van het Gentse college een contract af met de Gentse drukker Baudewijn Manilius voor het drukken van toneelprogramma's. Het document wordt bewaard in het Rijksarchief Gent in het fonds Archief van de jezuïeten te Gent (070) in de bundel nummer 55. Het contract betreft geen specifieke opdracht maar bepaalt de voorwaarden voor een onbepaald aantal gelijkaardige opdrachten in de toekomst en kan daarom het best omschreven worden als een raamcontract. Hoewel er aanwijzingen zijn dat dit document niet het enige in zijn soort was, is het het enige dat tot nog toe bekend is.

Gedrukte toneelprogramma's vormen de belangrijkste bron voor de studie van het toneel dat de jezuïeten in Vlaanderen in hun Latijnse colleges organiseerden. Voor het Gentse college alleen al zijn niet minder dan 130 verschillende opvoeringen die tussen 1611 en 1773 plaatsvonden op deze manier gedocumenteerd (cf. G. Proot, Het schooltoneel van de jezuïeten in de Provincia Flandro-Belgica tijdens het ancien régime. Antwerpen 2008). Dit vertegenwoordigt naar schatting 10 procent van de totale productie. Het grootste deel van de programma's maakt onderdeel uit van verschillende convoluten, die de bewaarkans van dit efemere drukwerk sterk hebben beïnvloed.

Het raamcontract verschaft informatie over de door de jezuïeten gewenste kwaliteit van het papier, de afgesproken prijs per exemplaar en de afwerking: het naaien, het binden in gemarmerd of gevlamd papier en het vergulden van de snede. In het contract wordt een duidelijk onderscheid gemaakt tussen de prijs per stuk voor de jezuïeten van Gent en voor andere colleges in omliggende steden. Terwijl voor Gent een vast bedrag per stuk geldt ongeacht de oplage, wordt voor opdrachten voor andere steden die beperkt van omvang zijn een hoger tarief afgesproken. Tot slot wordt in de tekst melding gemaakt van het drukken van ‘jaarlijkse emblemen’ op satijn en op groot, wit papier. Van deze laatste objecten, die in de schoolcultuur kennelijk een belangrijke rol moeten hebben gespeeld, ontbreekt tot nog toe elk spoor.

In deze bijdrage wordt het raamcontract vanuit een dubbel perspectief geanalyseerd. In de eerste plaats wordt de

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informatie die het document verschaft vergeleken met twee andere bronnen: enerzijds de bewaarde, gedrukte toneelprogramma's voor het Gentse college, en anderzijds een aantal rekeningen voor het drukken en leveren van toneelprogramma's voor de jezuïetencolleges in Gent en in Aalst. Deze rekeningen bevinden zich in de Gentse Universiteitsbibliotheek in de convoluten met de nummers G 13367, G 6145/1-43 en hs G 13160. De vergelijking van deze drie bronnen levert een veel genuanceerder beeld op van deze cultuur dan wanneer slechts één type bron zou worden behandeld. In tegenstelling tot Aalst lieten de jezuïeten in Gent vanaf de jaren 1660 vrij regelmatig verschillende varianten van toneelprogramma's drukken: naast programma's in het Nederlands ook programma's in het Latijn, en van deze laatste categorie bestelden ze soms zowel korte als lange versies. Binnen een bepaalde groep programma's werden sommige dan weer met een gravure verlucht terwijl andere niet geïllustreerd werden. Uit het raamcontract en de overgeleverde rekeningen blijkt bovendien dat sommige delen van de oplage een luxueuzere afwerking kregen dan andere.

Deze productdifferentiatie kan in relatie worden gebracht met de gelaagdheid van het publiek dat het toneel in het jezuïetencollege bijwoonde. Als vaste onderdelen van het pedagogische programma werden deze voorstellingen op een regelmatige basis georganiseerd. Ze waren gratis en stonden open voor een breed publiek van belangrijke genodigden, vooraanstaande burgers, maar ook leerlingen en hun ouders en andere belangstellenden. Afgaande op de aantallen die in de rekeningen worden vermeld bereikten de voorstellingen in Gent vele honderden personen. Het is duidelijk dat de Gentse jezuïeten met het gevarieerde aanbod aan programma's beter op de verschillende doelgroepen in het publiek wilden inspelen. Een belangrijke vraag die in dit verband rijst betreft de distributie van dat gevarieerde aanbod. Hoe werden de verschillende producten aan de verschillende doelgroepen aangereikt?

In de tweede plaats wordt het belang van het raamcontract bekeken vanuit het perspectief van de andere partij, stadsdrukker Baudewijn Manilius. De fondsanalyse naar het model dat Diederik Lanoye in 2010 op Mechelse drukkers toepaste (in: Gedrukte stad. Drukken in en voor Mechelen 1581-1800) toont aan dat het aandeel van kleine opdrachten binnen de activiteiten van Manilius van groot belang zijn. Dat wordt zowel bevestigd door een telling van het aantal bladen nodig voor de productie van een exemplaar van een editie, als door de verankering in tijd en ruimte van Manilius' publicaties. De opdrachten voor het drukken van toneelprogramma's van de jezuïeten in Gent en omliggende steden sluiten, hoe onooglijk ze op het eerste gezicht ook lijken, perfect aan bij het werk waarop de officiële stadsdrukker zich gedurende zijn hele carrière toelegde.

Wegens haar belang en het uitzonderlijke karakter van deze raamovereenkomst is ze in de appendix integraal getranscribeerd.

Daniel Bellingradt - De papierhandel in vroegmodern Europa. Over distributielogistiek, handelaren en handelsvolume in de late achttiende eeuw

Dit artikel gaat over het sociale karakter en de materialiteit van de historische papierhandel in het vroegmoderne Noord-Europa. Hoewel het een open deur is om te stellen dat de papierhandel de basis was van de Europese boekhandel en uitgeverij, is er zeer weinig onderzoek verricht naar het karakter van de papierhandel, dat wil zeggen naar de mensen, de praktijk, de omvang van de handel en de schaal. In dit artikel wordt een case study gepresenteerd van de papierhandel tussen Amsterdam en Hamburg in de periode 1777-1787, waarmee een onbekend aspect van de geschiedenis van het vroegmoderne boek wordt onderzocht. De details van invoer van Amsterdams papier in Hamburg voor het bestudeerde decennium tonen aan dat Amsterdam als grootste Europese exportcentrum voor papier verantwoordelijk was voor ca. 50-75 procent van de hoeveelheid papier die jaarlijks nodig was voor drukkers, als schrijfpapier en als handelswaar in de Vrije Rijksstad Hamburg. Er wordt betoogd dat er minimaal 150 miljoen vellen nodig waren in Hamburg en Altona, waarvan het leeuwendeel afkomstig was uit Amsterdam. Een van de resultaten van het onderzoek is dat Hamburg niet alleen een belangrijke stad was voor uitgevers, maar ook een spil in de continentale handel in papier. Door de grote vraag

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naar papier en de grote invoer uit Amsterdam te benadrukken wordt de winstgevendheid en het economische belang van de papierhandel in de mid-late achttiende eeuw duidelijk. Vooral de gegevens over de logistiek van de disitributie, de handelaren en de omvang van de handel tussen de beide grote havensteden benadrukken het belang van meer onderzoek naar de papierhandel in deze periode.

Steven van Impe - ‘Writing-paper of diverse sizes and qualities’. The paper shop of P.J. Parys in eighteenth-century Antwerp

Paper historians have traditionally looked at the production and, on a more modest scale, the international trade of paper. The third pillar of socio-economic research, the story of retail and consumption, has received almost no attention. Book historians, on the other hand, have repeatedly pointed out that booksellers also offered paper, pens, ink and other writing parafernalia, while many printers filled their days with jobbing, only occasionally producing a complete book. In this article, I look at the ledger of Petrus Joannes Parys, known as a minor bookprinter and bookseller in eigtheenth-century Antwerp. The ledger shows a remarkably large array of paper products, with a relatively stable price structure. Next to blank paper of different qualities and sizes (writing paper and post paper), there is drawing paper, printing paper, coloured paper, decorative paper (wallpaper), wrapping paper, waste paper and cardboard. He sold in small quantities, from a single sheet to a few quires (‘boek’, 24 sheets), only occasionally a full ream (‘riem’, 480 sheets). Simple writing paper cost between 4,5 and 8 stuivers per quire, while large drawing paper (circa 67 × 46 cm) could be obtained for 14 stuivers per sheet. Decorative paper was sold in rolls or in strips, waste paper (labelled misprints) was sold by the pound. This research has documented the price range of paper for consumers in Antwerp in the late eigtheenth century. Further research will have to determine whether these prices differed significantly from other locations, or other time periods. It will also be possible to compare retail prices to production costs, thus establishing the profit margins of different actors in the paper business. The results of this article help us to understand the commercial side of printing and bookselling firms in the early modern period. They provide a point of reference for research in jobbing printing, by establishing the price of the basic material, the unprinted sheet.

Paul van Capelleveen - ‘And one on Japanese paper’. On the selection of paper for Dutch private presses 1910-1942

The early Dutch private presses were modelled after the English ones, and particularly on the examples of William Morris's Kelmscott Press and Emery Walker's and T.J. Cobden-Sanderson's Doves Press. Ideas about page design and materials were taken from their tracts on The Ideal Book. The selection of paper by De Zilverdistel, De Kunera Pers, De Heuvelpers and the Marnix-Pers can be compared to that of their English predecessors, and their practices can also be compared to those of more commercial bibliophile publishers, such as The Bodley Head in London and A.A.M. Stols in Holland. From this, it transpires that in the workshop ideals were traded for pragmatic solutions, and that financial motives were as important as ideals.

Morris (who based his views on those of Walker) wrote that he opted for handmade laid paper, manufactured from unbleached linen rags by the firm of Joseph Batchelor & Son. He also printed books on vellum (but did not print large paper copies). The Bodley Head published a series of limited editions and aimed at exclusivity. Copies were numbered and printed on Japanese vellum, Whatman or Van Gelder handmade paper. In the Netherlands in the 1890s, such limited editions were produced of art books.

The first Dutch private press arrived on the scene in 1910: De Zilverdistel. It first showed a German, rather than English, influence: each copy was numbered (Morris never numbered copies of his editions). For a while, Dutch handmade

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paper was used. There were no vellum copies, although of one book a single copy was printed on Japanese paper. The paper was not mentioned in the colophon (as in the Kelmscott Press books), but announcements and advertisements made mention of it. Gradually, with the arrival of J.F. van Royen, the English influence on typography grew, and for the selection of paper, Van Royen followed Cobden-Sanderson and turned to the firm of Batchelor. The English paper maker was mentioned in the announcements, but only one colophon mentioned this paper: a French edition of Baudelaire's poems (1913), perhaps recognizing the need for it in the French book market. Van Royen then decided that the press needed its own paper. The Dutch firm of ivh Van Houtum produced a paper with a poorly designed watermark zd that was used for some books of De Zilverdistel. Later, two new moulds were made by Edwin Amies & Son in Maidstone, and the design of the two watermarks coincided with the two typefaces that were specially designed for the press by S.H. de Roos and Lucien Pissarro, who also designed the printer's marks. Van Royen wanted to have the paper made by a Dutch firm, but in the end the firm of Batchelor turned to be the only firm that could satisfy his needs.

By then, Van Royen had decided to change the name of the firm (and free himself of the other director, P.N. van Eyck). The new name, Kunera Pers, did not match the papers, but Van Royen did not decide to order new paper. In fact, he used the zd paper for two (out of five) books of the Kunera Pers. The link between watermark and type was lost. Van Royen also used a Japanese paper, that was not produced in Japan, and was, moreover, a machine made paper. All copies of an edition were printed on the same paper. Vellum was not used, nor were there any large paper copies. His selection of handmade papers met the requirements that were stipulated by Morris. The name of Batchelor was used to identify De Zilverdistel with the English example.

The practice of the bibliophile publisher Stols was different. His colophons mentioned every discernable detail of type, lay-out, and paper, following the French habit of the twenties and thirties. Such colophons created a hierarchy of paper, culminating in smaller and smaller sub-editions on deluxe papers.

Another Dutch private press before World War ii was De Heuvelpers, which ordered specially made Dutch paper. The press produced only four books in which a unity of type, paper, and design was reached. De Marnix-Pers, however, obtained its paper from a stationer's shop, and selected paper for each new book. The press printed deluxe editions on Japanese and other deluxe paper, but could not afford to do so for each publication. The owners did not refer to Morris or Cobden-Sanderson, but to their Dutch followers, although they knew they could not achieve what Van Royen had done. They printed for pleasure only.

Generally speaking, the early Dutch private presses wished to follow the example of Morris, and used handmade paper with a custom made watermark. Announcements mentioned these English roots. The deviations from the path to The Ideal Book were not advertised. Therefore, their financially driven decisions, affecting the selection of paper, were kept in the dark. Thus, the emphasis came to lie on the ideals of the private presses, while at the same time these ideals were taken less and less seriously.