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Daniel Bellingradt Profile picture
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28 Sep, 9 tweets, 6 min read
At first sight: a young viola player, painted with oil on panel in 1637 by Gerri Dou. But take a closer look at the shadowy parts and you will see a lot of paper details and various book variations of the time. A hidden #bookhistory thread.
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The painter of this stunning art work, Gerrit Dou, is considered a master painter of the seventeenth century, so please enjoy the images of the thread. Dou painted this piece of art at age twenty-four, in 1637.

Enjoy and zoom the painting yourself: nationalgalleries.org/art-and-artist…

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Let's zoom into the bookish details. You see some big leather bound books, printed paper in large paper formats - maybe even “double elephant folio” paper, in 1637, these papers were among the largest paper sheets available on the market. And there is more ...

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What you see are books stored on a shelf. Some are shelved fore-edge (#backwardbooks) to avoid damage of the spine - and some are positioned in the modern way. But where is the book title if not on the spine? As you can see: written on a leather piece.

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Big bound books needed book clasps. Often these hardware elements of a book were of leather or metal. They literally kept the book in shape.



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Old big books are waiting paper to be used. This deranged copy of a book reminds us of past usages, the problem of storing your paper artifact correctly, and a waste paper economy. Old or used books are often the first to be being recycled.



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A globe and bound books, and a violin, were not objects you would find in every household of seventeenth-century Europe. In fact, this young gentleman is part of a rich elite.

Classy bonus with a book on another book: using a big book as your reading support.

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No books on the floor, please..!

And the thread ends here, thank you for your attention. 8/8 ImageImage
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More from @dbellingradt

Daniel Bellingradt Profile picture
24 Oct
There is a paper story included into this famous German painting of 1830s from Carl Spitzweg. You may know the common interpretation of the Poor Poet (German: Der arme Poet): Attention to the material misery of most artists and their work!
Let's start a #paperhistory thread.
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The painting came in three versions and the one remaining copy is nowadays in the Neue Pinakothek (Munich: pinakothek.de/kunst/meisterw…). Let's focus on the paper used and present in this imagined scene of a poor poet in his attic room in the 1830s.
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Easy to spot in the room are a few big bound books. They may be bound in leather but they are printed upon paper, very likely before 1800. These are used books, old books, second hand books. Nota bene: The German antiquarian book trade developed in these days, #bookhistory.
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Read 11 tweets
Daniel Bellingradt Profile picture
10 Oct
A scene of paper management and usages: an European early modern tax office was full of papers. Fresh paper sheets, old paper sheets, printed papers, handwritten papers, waste papers, etc. Let's have a deeper look, #paperhistory. A next thread,
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Managing information became a paper business in Early Modern Europe. The expanding administration practices made secretaries, lawyer's offices, tax offices, etc. And they ran on paper, had to store paper, and deal with paper. It was a paper world.

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Let's focus on the details. This painted mocking scene is rich of details for #bookhistory and #paperhistory. So many paper usages imagined here.
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Read 15 tweets
Daniel Bellingradt Profile picture
15 Sep
So much paper in this 1665 painting from Cornelis N. Gijsbrechts. You see an open cupboard door, as art history labelled the image, but what you also see: prints, letters, a broadside, an almanac, stored unused paper sheets. Early Modern Europe was a paper age. A
thread, part 1.
This painting of late seventeenth century echoes the availability and usages of paper in Europe. By at least the fifteenth century, paper was increasingly used in more and more individual and public contexts. Have a look: brill.com/view/book/edco…

Part 2 of the thread.
Let's start with the letters. Writing letters, corresponding, was a thing in Europe. Managing your business or scholarly world, wrestling with administrative work, news transmission, and much more, all this was a paper using practice. You see folded and opened letters. Part 3.
Read 10 tweets
Daniel Bellingradt Profile picture
12 Jul
What you see is a painted impression of the physical circumstances of an European artist in the early nineteenth century. Among other details and objects, a lot of paper is present. Let's have a a closer look, #paperhistory and #bookhistory. A thread.

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The painting is titled Léon Pallière (1787–1820) in His Room at the Villa Medici, Rome, and was painted in 1817 on oil. The artist: the French Jean Alaux.
Here is a link to more details: metmuseum.org/art/collection…

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The writing place. A place of various paper usages: a letter on the table, a few bound books, folders filled with loose paper sheets, unbound books, a few sheets of paper in-between. Also: an ink pot, and a writing quill. #paperhistory

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Read 10 tweets
Daniel Bellingradt Profile picture
30 Mar
Early Modern Europe was a paper age - a first period of paper usages. Especially managing information became a paper business as the painting "The Lawyer's Office" (1628) from Pieter de Bloot @rijksmuseum t1p.de/1awb highlights. A meta thread for #paperhistory.
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As I have highlighted in earlier threads like this one (), paper was from the fourteenth century onwards increasingly being used for more and more communication flows. Hello inky paper states and letter writing humans, here comes the printing industry.
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The artifact paper became more and more present in Europe, for example in schools as I have shed light on here:

And the demand grew and grew and grew. More paper was used, for writing, for printing, and for wrapping purposes.

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Read 18 tweets
Daniel Bellingradt Profile picture
26 Mar
The Notary is a painting of mid-sixteenth century by Marinus van Reymerswaele. What we see is secretary work with paper: record keeping practices, writing, folding, storing.
A thread for #paperhistory and #bookhistory.

#AltePinakothek @Pinakotheken: t1p.de/emor

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Notaries needed offices in early modern Europe, because they provided paper businesses: they used papers as a general service. In fact, producing evidence in a lawsauit is a paper practice. First things first: writing on paper on a regular basis is the main office work.

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Let's focus on what writing was: a paper using literate practice that required - apart from paper - some more special materials, most importantly ink, an inkhorn, and a quill.

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Read 10 tweets

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