MARBLING ON CONTINENTAL CURRENCY

Every Monday, we show off a striking example of what are the most colorful features on historical book bindings: their marbled papers, edges, and cloths. A recent photo of some rainbow-colored marbled edges received over 1,000 likes, placing it among the all-time most-liked posts on the AAS feed.

We consistently see our IG followers excited by the vivid hues and complex patterns of eighteenth- and nineteenth-century marbling; we even hear from the talented artists who are marbling papers today. People have posted countless comments noting the beauty of marbled papers and expressing enthusiasm for the #MarbledMonday feature.

But what has inspired our audience’s “marbled madness”—this fascination with an often-overlooked book art? A lot of it has to do with the aesthetic appeal of marbling, for sure. The intricate and varied patterns certainly catch the eye. But I think part of the attraction comes from the mystery of marbled papers, edges, and cloths. How could an artist, working in the eighteenth or nineteenth centuries, produce such vibrant and extraordinarily complicated designs, over and over again? These patterns have repeating elements that are remarkably precise and symmetrical: How was this done, we wonder, with old-fashioned tools? Even knowing the answer to this question, the art still seems somewhat like sorcery.

The art of marbling paper originated in Asia—with the Japanese art of suminagashi and the Turkish ebrû form—and eventually made its way toward Europe around the time of the Renaissance. By the end of the seventeenth century, marbling was fairly well established in France and Germany;

The earliest examples of American marbling can be traced to the 1760s, but the art form did not become an industry until the first half of the nineteenth century. For this reason, most of the marbled papers in the AAS collection are from the 1830s and beyond. There are a few notable exceptions, however, including pieces of Revolutionary currency that used marbling as an anti-counterfeiting measure—an innovation championed by none other than Ben Franklin.

To read the complete article, see:
Marbled Madness! (http://pastispresent.org/2016/good-sources/marbled-madness/)

	NBS (coinbooks.org) Web