Creator
Shougongzhi (手工紙).
Title
Selection of six Chinese, Japanese, Korean, and Tibetan examples of handmade paper,
Date
ca. 1970.
Subject
Gift of Xia Wei and Soren Edgren.
Description
It is often written that paper was invented in China circa 105 CE by a court official named Cai Lun. Yet early hemp paper survives from as early as the 2nd century BCE. Between the 3rd and 6th centuries CE, paper superseded silk and bamboo as the principal substrate in the East—nearly 1,000 years before paper began to be made in 12th-century Moorish Spain. These modern-day handmade paper specimens from China, Japan, Korea, and Tibet consist of materials used for nearly two millennia for writing and woodblock printing.
- Upper left: China (Fujian), maobianzhi, bamboo, laid.
- Upper right: China (Anhui), xuanzhi, blue sandalwood, laid.
- Middle left: Korea, paper-mulberry, laid.
- Middle right: China (Yunnan), mianzhi, paper-mulberry, laid.
- Lower left: Tibet (Nepal), daphne, wove.
- Lower right: Japan, paper-mulberry, laid
Source
From the collection of Rare Book School