Paper watermarks

Can anyone help me identify this watermark?

It is on a very nice green handmade paper that the Allen Press used for the title pages of “Four Fictions” (1973).
The colophon identifies the four papers they used for the stories in the book (Wookey Hole, Richard de Bas, Curtis, Fabriano), but not this one.

>1 kermaier:

I do not know this with certainty, but my "educated" guess, knowing the tendencies and proclivities of the Allens, is that this is from Richard de Bas. Additionally, it has a distinctly medieval look similar to other watermarks I have seen from this 700-year old paper mill. Incidentally, note the missing terminal digit of the 4th (ring) finger - something which also speaks to medieval times.

Why? Because I can wildly conjecture that this person was tortured for his belief in his Christian faith - hence the Sign of the Cross at the tip of his 3rd (middle) finger.

>2 dlphcoracl: When I look at the watermark I see all three digits on the ring finger. It took me awhile staring at it to see what you were talking about. I see a slightly fainter arch than the others but definitely see it. Maybe it's my mind playing tricks on me, but I just checked my copy and all the arches connecting the terminal digits look the same.

>2 dlphcoracl:
I also initially guessed Richard de Bas, for the same reasons. However, the other paper from that mill in the same book has a completely different watermark. I also pulled down every Allen Press book in my collection (hoping they’d used this paper elsewhere), and found several with Richard de Bas paper, but none with this watermark.
I’m 95% sure that I’ve seen it before, but I can’t find it among my books yet.

>3 kdweber:

From the photo above it appeared as if the last digit was absent but it may simply be fainter as you have suggested, especially when looking at its appearance in your own copy. My copy of Four Fictions does not contain this watermark on my title page sheets.

>4 kermaier:

If you are going to search your books for other Richard de Bas papers, I can save you a bit of time by telling you to restrict your search to the Allen Press books. Richard de Bas papers are almost never seen in other English language books and only appear in book printed in France in the French language. The exceptions to this are several of the LEC books published by Sidney Shiff in the 1970s and 1980s. However, he only used the de Bas papers for his photographic illustrations, not the actual text pages.

My guess that this is Richard de Bas remains the same. It DOES have a medieval look and this watermark might only be known to a 700 y.o. paper mill with medieval roots.

>5 dlphcoracl:
All the Richard de Bas papers I've found have this watermark:


The Allen Press Bibliography notes, for Four Fictions, "Two-page opening, printed on gray paper; verso...", but no further information about that paper.

I agree that the hand+cross watermark does have a medieval look to it.
I found this image for a book at Oak Knoll of paper samples from Cartiera Ventura in Italy, but it looks more like a modern homage to medieval watermarks, whereas the one from the Allen Press looks authentically antique.


The search continues....

Which book is this, exactly? Who is the author(s)?

>7 ultrarightist:
You mean the one at Oak Knoll that I mentioned?
https://www.oakknoll.com/pages/books/125924/alfresco-diciannove-colori-a-due-gra...

>8 kermaier: No, I meant the Allen Press book.

>9 ultrarightist:
Oh, sorry — it’s Four Fictions by Joseph Conrad, Gustave Flaubert, Henry James and Luigi Pirandello.

Hmm... why does the touchstone pick up dlphcoracl’s entry instead of mine?

Here is a little something from Wikipedia Commons:

https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:Hands_in_watermaks

>11 dpbbooks: It looks pretty close to the N le clerc main watermark.

>1 kermaier:
>11 dpbbooks:

The watermark 3rd from left, top row, is the watermark on the Allen PRess title page. Notice that all of these watermarks are French and this one is:

Filigrane 04798: Acte Notarié de la famille Angenoust. It is the notary mark of the Angenoust family.

More than ever, I would bet that the paper for the title page of 'Four Fictions' is from Richard de Bas.

>13 dlphcoracl: I agree that is a match. Raises the question as to whether the Angenoust family has any connection to the Richard de Bas mill.

That watermark has been driving me nuts! I have seen it in the past, somewhere, but cannot for the life of me remember where I saw it or to what mill it belongs. AAAAAARRRRGGGGHHHH!

A short video on the de Bas mill: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hfko5y9DLYc

Enjoy it!

Not entirely convinced it's de Bas. This page (1) has the same watermark and it mentions that the paper was made in 16th century in l'Aube in France. Afaik de Bas was not located in Aube but more south, but I did find a mention that some of the oldest mills in France come from the town of Troyes which is in Aube. Sadly this is as far as I got.

(1) https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Filigrane

Ok doing a bit more digging I came across a site that lets you search historical paper watermarks by motif(!). Pretty cool, I know. Anyway, I couldn't find an exact match for the watermark in question, but we can get pretty close. See http://www.ksbm.oeaw.ac.at/_scripts/php/loadWmIcons.php?rep=briquet&IDsubtyp...

From this page, number 11424 seems the closest to me (though thumb is still off and the digits aren't as aligned), and the reference for this one indeed mentions Troyes as the origin (dated 1502). I can totally see how this watermark evolved into the one from OP after a while. Still, I would be curious if anyone can provide more accurate information.

Wow, great research! There are several that are close enough to be predecessors of the one in question, but there are subtle difference. Some have the hand’s proportions differently aligned; other have the sleeve/cuff stylized differently, others have a looser rendering of the cross.

At this point, I believe we are looking at a French paper, which fits with these antique samples, as well as with the Allens’ long association with France as a source of materials and technique. But I remain skeptical that the paper is from Richard de Bas, since their own centuries-old watermark has no elements in common with this one.

>5 dlphcoracl:
"My copy of Four Fictions does not contain this watermark on my title page sheets."
I just noticed you comment -- are your copy's title pages printed on grey-green laid paper, or a different sheet?

Edit: Since the Allen Press Bibliography candidly allows that one of the inspirations for this book was the presence of several leftover papers in quantities insufficient for a full book each, it’s not inconceivable that they may have taken liberties with the title pages.

>18 kermaier:
Although, to be fair, the Allen Press Bibliography notes several instances where the Richard de Bas mill produced paper to order, custom watermarked for the Allen Press — so not impossible that they also produced this paper with an “alien” watermark.

>18 kermaier: note that this seems to be a flower, not a cross, according to the website I linked above.

Coming very late to the discussion, but perhaps the info's still of interest: this is a Barcham Green watermark, used on at least a couple of their papers, including Hayle (white) and Tovil (toned). It looked very familiar when it was originally posted but I couldn't remember where I'd seen it before, and a brief search of my books and the web offered no answers, so I had no suggestions to offer then.

However I recently acquired a copy of the 1976 portfolio "A Little Rebellion Now and Then" which contains 14 broadsides on full sheets of Barcham Green Tovil paper and there was the watermark posted by >1 kermaier:. It's an exact match, and easy to compare as the broadsides aren't covered in text, and that mark (one of 4 on the sheet) is near the edge of the sheet. The other 3 marks are the BG initials, the phrase "HAND MADE" and the more familiar BG face of Christ.

Simon Barcham Green has a site devoted to paper moulds in his own collection, and the raised hand can be seen in the top left corner of the second photo on this page: https://papermoulds.typepad.com/simon-barcham-greens-pap/2011/04/featured-moulds.... Earlier versions of the moulds had F.J. Head's initials instead of the BG ones, as F.J. Head's papers were taken over by Barcham Green after the First World War.

>22 s_malcolm:
Fantastic! Thank you for solving this mystery! I’m sure I’ve got something in my collection printed on Barcham Green paper, and the watermark stuck in my head. (Of course, now I’ll have to redouble my efforts to find it....)
Well done!

The puzzle of where I’ve seen that watermark before, remains unsolved. I’ve turned up several books printed on J. Barcham Green, Hayle Mill and F.J. Head papers (I think those are all from the same mill?), but none with that watermark.

>24 kermaier::

Yes, I've had a look at a few as well, but no trace so far. If I find one I'll post the details here. For reference, the full sheets of the paper measure about 40 x 52 cm so if folio, the book would be tall but not enormous. (Actually I see now that Simon BG gives the measurements on his paper moulds blog so that's probably redundant info!)

I've now found the Barcham Green hand watermark in these 3 books:

Printing for Theater (Adrian Wilson, 1957)
C-S The Master Craftsman (Adagio Press, 1969)
Ourika (Bird and Bull Press for W. Thomas Taylor, 1977)

In fact The Whole Book Experience has a lengthy description of Ourika (http://www.thewholebookexperience.com/2018/05/20/ourika-by-claire-de-durfort-published-by-bird-bull-press/) and the hand watermark is the third of the small images on that page (full size: http://www.thewholebookexperience.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/04/Ourika-2.jpg).

I found the books which I owned myself with the right BG paper by using the keyword search on ABE for "hayle paper" and "tovil paper", so one of those might remind you of where you saw it before. I don't think I'd have noticed the watermark when reading any of my own books, so I must have seen an image somewhere else, possibly in one of the books on papermaking that Barcham Green produced over the years.

>26 s_malcolm:
Good suggestion, but I still can't turn it up among my books (other than the Four Fictions title page). Oh well... But I'm happy that the paper has been identified!

I've found the watermark being discussed in The Patriarch Tree by Raïssa Maritain; published by Stanbrook Abbey. Printed on Barcham Green's "Eltham" hand-made paper. The watermark is visible on many pages. There is also another watermark used several times. This shows an image of Christ's head with halo and the date 1399 underneath. I imagine that this was requested by the nuns of Stanbrook? What the date refers to I'm not able to discover.

The V&A have a fascinating article by Jane Rutherston, of the Conservation and Collections Management, relevant to the "Christ's head" watermark. The discussion surrounds The Leman Album of 97 silk designs by the Spitalfield designer and master weaver James Leman. The endpapers are from Barcham Green and Simon Green reveals that the watermark is one developed by Barcham Green and is of St Veronica.
https://www.vam.ac.uk/blog/caring-for-our-collections/the-leman-binding

I’ve finally been able to corroborate from my own collection: The recent Heavenly Monkey edition of “The Dunwich Horror” is printed on Barcham Green paper carrying the same watermark. (Deep sigh)

>30 kermaier: Mystery solved

Geoffrey Wakeman's English Hand Made Papers (Plough Press, 1972) breaks Sxn 1 (the bulk of the book) into two sections: Green's Fine Papers and Wookey Hole. Things get confusing as Barcham Green acquired other papermakers in the 20th century. In the Green's section, that watermark appears on the Hayle and Tovil samples. Re the hand watermark, see the last sentence:

>32 H-M: Thank you, that’s good info! I was wondering about the “1399” watermark as well — I never suspected it was a joke!