Blue Paper: The Overlooked History of a Drawing, Printing and Writing Material 1400-1600

Burns, Thea

ISBN 10: 1916642071 / ISBN 13: 9781916642072

Published by Archetype Books, 2025

About this Item

168 pages. 6.79x0.39x9.42 inches. In Stock.

Seller Inventory # __1916642071

Bibliographic Details

• Title: Blue Paper: The Overlooked History of a Drawing, Printing and Writing Material 1400-1600
• Publisher: Archetype Books
• Publication Date: 2025
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 1916642071
• ISBN 13: 9781916642072
• Binding: Paperback
• Condition: Brand New
• Weight: 0.42 kilograms

About this title

Synopsis

This book studies the early modern phenomenon of the increasing production and consumption of blue-hued paper, a material used widely in Italy as a drawing, writing and printing support as well as an ephemeral wrapping.

This book studies the early modern phenomenon of the increasing production and consumption of blue-hued paper, a material used widely in Italy as a drawing, writing and printing support as well as an ephemeral wrapping. Until recently researchers overlooked blue paper as an object of curiosity and worthy of study, often judging that, because of its assumed less refined fabrication and mottled color compared to the finest contemporary white papers, it was a poor-quality product of lowly function and no particular interest. Close looking, a method of visual examination used regularly by a wide range of professional disciplines, is used here to examine a selection of surviving paper artifacts from the period c.1400-c.1600. Combined with a reconsideration of the extant documentary sources and placed in a broad historically-based synchronic context, this book presents new information and interpretations to enrich the nascent blue paper corpus.