Through this simple non-destructive study, a more detailed impression has been obtained on the paper selected by Andersen, Købke, Rørbye, Lundbye and Hansen for their
drawings and watercolour paintings in the first half of the 19th century. This was the Danish Golden Age, a period when new paper types became available such as wove and machine-made paper. Only limited numbers of 19th- and 20th-century watermarks have hitherto been published, and the documen-tation of 19th-century papers used by Danish artists in the first half of the century in Denmark, Norway and Italy will therefore contribute to knowledge on the production of, and trade in, paper made in Europe.
A study of European papers used for a selection of 18th-cen-tury architectural drawings at the Antiquarian Topographical Collection in the National Museum of Denmark revealed a dominance of Dutch laid paper.6 Laid papers from Danish paper mills were only represented in this group by writing paper used for letters and reports in connection with the buildings described. In a later study, the notes and dates writ-ten by Andersen on his 130 drawings from his grand tour revealed that relatively new Whatman wove paper must have been available in Italy. The notes and dates added by Hansen, Købke, Rørbye and Lundbye on their numerous drawings and watercolour paintings from their grand tours, and from Denmark and Norway, document that the new Whatman wove paper was available not only in Italy but also in Denmark during the first part of the 19th century. It is obvious that Martinus Rørbye, like the English artists Gainsborough, Downman and Turner,7 chose wove paper with a smooth vellum-like surface for his watercolour painting of the even-ing atmosphere in Procida, where the paper tone and texture was used in the painting as a colour in itself (Fig. 8). Rørbye’s watercolour paintings and pencil drawings illustrate how the tone and texture of the paper unite with the thin layer of paint to create the composition without the use of varnish. Such extremely fine details could never have been done so per-fectly on any type of paper other than wove, such as the one he used in his pencil drawing of Constantinople a few months later (Fig. 9). Rørbye only used coloured papers for drawings with pencil and chalk, whereas Hansen and Lundbye chose coloured papers not only for many of their drawings but also for watercolour paintings.
Dutch paper is still richly represented in the work of Andersen, Købke, Rørbye, Lundbye and Hansen – not only laid paper but also wove paper from C & I Honig’s mill (Fig.
10). All the papers without laid and chain lines or watermarks might be either handmade wove paper or machine-made paper, which have a similar appearance. Clear evidence for the difference in fibre direction between the randomly oriented fibres in handmade paper and the existence of a dominant fibre direction for machine-made paper was not possible to obtain in this non-destructive macroscopic examination.
The fragments of watermarks, observed in Andersen’s drawings from Florence, illustrate that these papers origi-nated from Italian paper mills. Examination of the paper of the last drawing from Florence in OBM’s collection con-firmed that it originated from Gaetano Amatruda’s paper mill in Amalfi (Fig. 11). Andersen had indeed bought and used Italian paper from one of the numerous paper mills in Valle dei Mulini in Amalfi, as had been anticipated at the beginning of the study. The Amatruda paper mill still exists and is now
A TECHNICAL STUDY OF 19TH-CENTURY PAPERS USED BY DANISH ARTISTS
Fig. 8 Martinus Rørbye’s watercolour painting on wove paper is, according to his notes, from June 1835, and shows a view from Procida towards Vesuvius, Statens Museum for Kunst, Copenhagen, SMK KKSgb6218. (Image: SMK.)
Fig. 9 Martinus Rørbye chose a wove paper without any impression of the mould wire for his pencil drawing in Constantinople of Punto del Seraille, Statens Museum for Kunst, Copenhagen, SMK KKS1974-66. (Image:
SMK.)
Fig. 10 Johan Thomas Lundbye painted his watercolour and ink painting on 10 February 1848 at the coast of Godthaab, taking in a view towards Kronborg Castle in Elsinore, on laid Dutch paper from the C & I Honig paper mill, Statens Museum for Kunst, Copenhagen, SMK KKSgb103. (Image: SMK.)
ANNA-GRETHE RISCHEL
the only one left in Amalfi, where high-quality handmade drawing paper is produced today by Gaetano’s descendants, Teresa and Antoinetta Amatruda. Andersen also used hand-made French and other Italian papers for his sketches, some of them wove, such as Johannot’s papier velin from Annonay.
Without white rags of fine quality it was not possible to produce white paper for writing, printing and drawing.
Papermakers often added blue pigments such as smalt or blue fibres to produce a white paper. The presence of col-oured paper among the drawings and watercolour paintings at SMK could either illustrate a serious and growing scar-city of sufficient white rags for the production of white paper or a desire by the artists to use coloured paper other than the classical white drawing paper. Toned papers have always been used by artists for drawing with chalk, and drawings and watercolour paintings on coloured papers are well rep-resented among the works in the SMK collection (Fig. 12).
Much information can be found by simply studying the paper material with the naked eye, as illustrated by the print of the
French papermakers’ final check of paper sheets (Fig. 13) in Jérôme de La Lande’s book L’art de faire le papier of 1761.8 We should follow in their footsteps and continue to study paper to learn more of its history, technology and origin.
Acknowledgements
I would like to thank the Odense City Museum and the National Gallery of Denmark for providing excellent working conditions at the paper conservation studios in OBM and SMK, with access to non-exhibited drawings, watercolour paintings and letters from the five Danish artists.
Notes
1. R.L. Hills, Papermaking in Britain 1488‒1988, London, Athlone Press, 1988, p. 36.
2. A. Zonghi, ‘Le Marche principali delle Carte Fabrianesi dal 1293 al 1599, Fabriano’, 1881, and ‘Le antiche Carte Fabrianesi alla Esposizione Generale Italiana de Torino, Fano’, 1884, in Fig. 13 Hand-finishing of paper: sorters examine the paper against the light to check for defects (from plate XIV, fig. I, in The Art of Papermaking, 1976, English version of J.J. Le Français de La Lande, L’art de faire le papier, 1761). (Image: National Museum of Denmark.)
Fig. 11 Hans Christian Andersen’s small pencil and ink drawing of the bridge over the Arno River, Florence, is dated 12 April 1834. The small piece of paper, measuring only 10.2 × 13.4 cm, is laid paper with chain and laid lines, and part of a watermark indicating that the paper originates from one of the numerous Amalfi paper mills in the 19th century, Odense City Museum OBM XXIII-A-1/0231. (Image: traced by A-G Rischel.)
Fig. 12 A greyish paper with tiny blue flecks, rather than a white paper, was chosen by Johan Thomas Lundbye for his watercolour painting of Hellide Klint, Refnæs, Kalundborg on 25 August 1843, Statens Museum for Kunst, Copenhagen, KKSgb17. (Image: SMK.)
A TECHNICAL STUDY OF 19TH-CENTURY PAPERS USED BY DANISH ARTISTS
A. Zonghi and A. Zonghi, Zonghi’s Watermarks: Monumenta chartae papyraceae historiam illustrantia III, Fabriano, Hilversum, 1953; G. Castagnari, ‘News on the acquisition of the sample collection “Raccolta Augusti Zonghi”’, Excerpts of the 1st Convention in Italy on Industrial Paper Archaeology, ISTOCARTA, Istituto Europeo de Storia della carta e delle Scienze cartarie Foundation in Fabriano, IPH Paper History 20(2), 2016, p. 19. The collection was acquired in 2016 by Fondazione ‘Gianfranco Fedrigoni’.
3. R.L. Hills, ‘The Whatmans and wove paper’, in Papermaking in Britain 1488‒1988, London, Athlone Press, 1988, p. 78.
According to Hills: ‘The elder Didot, the noted Parisian prin-ter and publisher, regretted that it was not possible to print on laid paper with some of the fine type produced by the English type-founder Caslon, and sent a letter to Johannot, a skilled papermaker in Annonay. After studying the paper of Baskerville’s Virgil, he carried out some trial experiments with woven wire cloth and produced paper called papier velin.’ See also M.-H. Reynaud, ‘Lettre de François Johannot à son fils, Annonay, le 6 Mars 1826’, in Une histoire de papier, les papte-ries Canson et Montgolfier, Papetepapte-ries Canson et Montgolfier, 1989, p. 69.
4. Translation by the author.
5. Ibid.
6. A-G. Rischel, ‘Adaptation and innovation in technology and quality: a study of 250 years of Danish and European rag paper’, in IPH Congress Book 2004, Duszniki Zdrój, Poland, Muzeum Papiernictwa 15, 2004, pp. 105‒115; and A-G Rischel, ‘Bonds
between Chinese and European paper technology: adaptation and innovation’, in Tradition and Innovation: Proceedings of the 6th IDP Conservation Conference, Beijing, National Library of China and London, British Library, 2005, pp. 26‒36.
7. P. Bower, ‘The evolution and development of “drawing papers”
and the effect of this development on watercolour artists 1750‒1850’, in P. Bower (ed.), The Oxford Papers, Proceedings of the British Association of Paper Historians Fourth Annual Conference, 1993, pp. 61‒74; P. Bower, ‘The white art: the impor-tance of interpretation in the analysis of paper’, in Looking at Paper: Evidence and Interpretation, Toronto, Canadian Conservation Institute, 1999, pp. 5‒16.
8. J.J. Le Français de Lalande, L’art de faire le papier, Paris, 1761. A copy of the first edition of 1761 is available in the library of the Danish Design Museum, Copenhagen. For an English trans-lation see R. MacIntyre Atkinson, The Art of Papermaking, Mountcashel Castle, Kilmurry, Ashling Press, 1976. No. 391 of this limited edition is available in the library of the Conservation Department, National Museum of Denmark.
Author’s address
Anna-Grethe Rischel, Environmental Archaeology and Materials Science, National Museum of Denmark, I. C. Modewegsvej, DK-2800 Kgs. Lyngby, Denmark (Anna-Grethe.Rischel@natmus.dk)