| Title: | Marbling the leather |
| Original Title: | Marbrer le cuir |
| Volume and Page: | Vol. 10 (1765), p. 72 |
| Author: | Unknown |
| Translator: | Abigail Wendler Bainbridge [West Dean College] |
| Subject terms: |
Bookbinding
|
| Original Version (ARTFL): | Link |
| Rights/Permissions: |
This text is protected by copyright and may be linked to without seeking permission. Please see http://quod.lib.umich.edu/d/did/terms.html for information on reproduction. |
| URL: | http://hdl.handle.net/2027/spo.did2222.0002.553 |
| Citation (MLA): | "Marbling the leather." The Encyclopedia of Diderot & d'Alembert Collaborative Translation Project. Translated by Abigail Wendler Bainbridge. Ann Arbor: Michigan Publishing, University of Michigan Library, 2011. Web. [fill in today's date in the form 18 Apr. 2009 and remove square brackets]. <http://hdl.handle.net/2027/spo.did2222.0002.553>. Trans. of "Marbrer le cuir," Encyclopédie ou Dictionnaire raisonné des sciences, des arts et des métiers, vol. 10. Paris, 1765. |
| Citation (Chicago): | "Marbling the leather." The Encyclopedia of Diderot & d'Alembert Collaborative Translation Project. Translated by Abigail Wendler Bainbridge. Ann Arbor: Michigan Publishing, University of Michigan Library, 2011. http://hdl.handle.net/2027/spo.did2222.0002.553 (accessed [fill in today's date in the form April 18, 2009 and remove square brackets]). Originally published as "Marbrer le cuir," Encyclopédie ou Dictionnaire raisonné des sciences, des arts et des métiers, 10:72 (Paris, 1765). |
Marbling the leather, Ordinarily for this one uses copperas [1] or black silk dye; [2] one takes a houndstooth [3] paintbrush that one steeps in the black, and after having shaken it well, one takes a peg and hits the brush handle on top of it so that the black held by the brush falls evenly on the books covered in calf. These books must be suspended by the sides of the binding over two wooden trindles. One lets the paper [4] fall underneath between two rulers that hold the boards, such that the leather receives all the color that falls from the paintbrush.
Edge-marbling . One ties the volume well, and dips the edge into the marbler’s tub. See Marbled Paper; the technique is the same.
Translator's Notes
1. An old term for ferrous sulfate (FeSO 4 ), which is used in the making of iron gall ink. It may also be referred to as vitriol, which is a generic term for various sulfates.
Dudin suggests “melting a few pence-worth of copperas in a pint of ordinary water.” See René Martin Dudin, The Art of the Bookbinder and Gilder , trans. Richard Macintyre Atkinson (Leeds: The Elmete Press, 1977 [1772]), p. 53.
2. Cordelia Rogerson informs me that black dye would almost certainly contain iron and behave on the leather in the same way as ferrous sulfate.
3. This term refers to the shape of the brush.
4. (Textblock)