Friday, September 23, 2016

A New Drawing Book of Modes - Picart

This is a lovely small book on how to sketch the human figure and is part of the University Libraries’ Special Collections and University Archives. It was printed for Richard Ware at the Bible & Sun in Amen-Corner, Warwick-Lane, London, in the late 1700’s, or beginning of the 1800’s.




  The cover received a traditional handmade marble paper design with a 24K gold stamping on a maroon leather title label. A clamshell box was created using the same colors found on the original cover.


Marble papers go back in time for centuries. This technique traveled from the Orient, Middle East and reached Europe in the 1600’s. Today we can find marble paper everywhere, but there are only a few places that are specialized on the making of marble paper in a very traditional way.
A brief history of marble papers can be found here: