Gilding (book)

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Press-gilded cover from the 19th century
Gilded cover from the 16th century with blind embossing
Press-gold-plated cover from the Renaissance with blind embossing

The gold plating as a decorative shape of a book cover refers to transmission gold or gold colored substances by means of embossing on the cover material of the cover. As a rule, a distinction is made between gilding by hand, gold printing , and press gilding (historically also press gilding ), as a form of machine gilding. The colorless or colored equivalents to gold plating are blind embossing and color embossing .

history

The use of gold leaf in cover decoration goes back to the Copts . In this early phase of the art of binding, however, it was not used for embossing, but for supporting breakthrough work. A golden accent on blind print covers was also known, although the pigments were still applied with a brush.

Hand gilding as a stamping technique is attested as an Islamic development as early as the 11th century. It was used in Morocco from the 13th century and is first documented from this time. The British Museum in London is home to what is probably the oldest known specimen, a goatskin strap decorated with gold print, as the cover of a manuscript from Marrakech that was created around the middle of the century. In the 14th century, hand gilding first spread to the Islamic cultural area, before finally conquering European binding production via Italy at the turn of the century. With the invention of the stick press , hand gilding was gradually replaced by the technique of pressed gilding during the Renaissance . The gilding became the defining decoration of the binding and remained so, in various forms, until the 19th century. Today gold printing is only used for custom-made products and even press gold plating has become rare.

Tools

The tools for hand gilding correspond to those for blind embossing. Compressors , fillets , stamps , rolls as well as line and sheet sets for the representation of lines, patterns and motifs, types for title printing , inscriptions or decorative tape . A great deal of care in production is much more important here than with blind printing, because in order to leave a clear imprint in the gold, the motif edges must be very sharp and deeply cut. In contrast to gold printing, large engraved brass plates are used in press gilding, for which manual pressure is not sufficient. Both plates and stamps are made as positives for gilding. The imprint does not appear raised later, but deepened.

Manufacturing

Gold printing

The classic form of gold printing is the use of gold leaf on leather . The first step is to blindly print the representation. Once the design has been completely transferred to the leather, it is cleaned with vinegar and the blind motif is primed with a very narrow brush and paste to prevent the binding agent from seeping into the leather pores. In the case of relatively water-repellent types of leather, such pre-treatment is unnecessary. Here you can go straight to the second step. After a short drying phase, this provides for the second layer of primer, which used to consist of a mixture of egg white and vinegar, now mostly based on shellac . Priming with egg white requires very quick further treatment, as there is no longer sufficient adhesion after one hour, whereas shellac can be used for a whole working day.

The next step is to oil the surrounding leather surface to prevent the gold from sticking outside the motif. The bookbinder then lifts a cut piece of gold leaf using an application block and applies it to the cover. Here it is rubbed in with a cotton ball until the preliminary drawing is clearly visible. The tools, which have meanwhile been preheated to around 100 ° C, are now used to repeat the stamps under firm, brief pressure. Through the combination of heat and primer, the gold is firmly connected to the cover leather. Excess gold can then be easily wiped off.

In modern manual binding, gold printing is sometimes done with gold foil instead of real gold leaf. Gold foil is either a real gold or just gold-colored embossing foil, a composite of carrier, separating, coloring and adhesive layer, which makes a priming of the cover material unnecessary. Under the influence of pressure and heat, the coloring layer separates from the separating layer and connects to the substrate through the adhesive layer. The main area of ​​application of stamping foils, however, is not gold printing, but press gold plating, for which they were originally developed.

Press gold plating

Toggle press for use in blind pressing and gold-plating from the Karl Krause factory
Embossing press with inlaid book cover

As a rule, foils are used in press gold plating; they adhere to any surface and are therefore particularly suitable for use on fabric tapes. While the industrial production of publisher's bindings requires press gold plating with foils, plate embossing with gold leaf is also possible in handicrafts. The operations for this largely correspond to those for hand gilding. Here, too, the motifs are preprinted, primed and then embossed by applying the gold. The difference is that the pressure is no longer done manually, but through the use of presses . The production of press-gold-plated covers in industry and in the handicrafts otherwise only differs in the size and the usability of the machines. While mass editions are decorated in high-speed press systems on the assembly line, the hand gilders usually work with smaller, hand-operated devices.

literature

  • Ernst Ammering: Book covers (= The bibliophile paperbacks 475). Harenberg Kommunikation, Dortmund 1985, ISBN 3-88379-475-9 .
  • CW Gerhardt: Embossing foil. In: Severin Corsten (Ed.): Lexicon of the entire book system. Volume 6: Phraseology - Schütz-Hufeland. Hiersemann, Stuttgart 2003, ISBN 3-7772-0327-0 , p. 78.
  • Thorvald Henningsen: The manual for the bookbinder. 2nd edition. Rudolf Hostettlerverlag et al., St. Gallen et al. 1969.
  • Helmut Hiller, Stephan Füssel: Dictionary of the book. 6th fundamentally revised edition. Vittorio Klostermann, Frankfurt am Main 2002, ISBN 3-465-03220-9 .
  • Otto Mazal : Binding customer. The history of the book cover (= elements of the book and library system 16). Ludwig Reichert Verlag, Wiesbaden 1997, ISBN 3-88226-888-3 .
  • Fritz Wiese: The book cover. A working customer with work drawings. 5th revised edition. Schlueter, Hannover 1979, ISBN 3-87706-300-4 .
  • Otto Horn: The technique of hand gilding and leather covering , 3rd edition, revised. u. ed. by Hans Bauer. Bauer, Gera 1904, 1st edition 1885.

Web links

Commons : Gilded books  - Collection of pictures, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Adolf Bube: Instructions for learning the press gilding of blind, relief, bronze and color printing and leather mosaic . Leipzig 1892.
  2. ↑ Ammering: book covers. P. 224 f.
  3. ^ Mazal: Binding customer. P. 153.
  4. ↑ Ammering: book covers. P. 225.
  5. ^ Angelika Pabel: Conference report of the 5th annual conference of the working group for the collection and indexing of historical book bindings (AEB). Münster, September 28-30, 2000
  6. ↑ Ibid. P. 225.
  7. ^ Hiller / Füssel: Dictionary of the book . P. 150.
  8. ↑ Wiese: The book cover. P. 299 ff.
  9. ↑ Ammering: book covers. P. 226 f.
  10. ^ CW Gerhardt: Embossing foil. In: Lexicon of the entire book industry . Vol. 6, p. 78.
  11. ↑ Wiese: The book cover. P. 330.