Papers

Lalande, Joseph Jérome le Français de.

Art de faire le papier. — [Paris: Desaint et Saillant, 1761].

This survey of the papermaking industry in eighteenth century Europe is the work of French astronomer Joseph Jérome Le Français de Lalande (1732–1807). Contemporary papermaking machinery and processes are illustrated in fourteen illustrations drawn and engraved by Pierre Patte (1723–1814). Plate XI shows the couchers at work, some lifting the wet sheets of paper from the moulds and others transferring them to the couch board and building a “post” of wet sheets of paper interleaved with felts.

Gift of Samuel Putnam Avery, 1896.

Japan Paper Company.

Paper samples, ca. 1920s.

The Grolier Club’s Japan Paper Company collection comprises over 200 samples of handmade papers produced from 1914 to 1933.  Founded in New York City in 1901 by Richard Tracy Stevens to import tissue paper from Japan for use in tea bags and Elizabeth Arden cosmetics, the Japan Paper Company was soon importing handmade and moldmade papers from fifteen countries and promoting them by commissioning high quality design and printing.