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008 · handmade paper · model

Paper mills on the Kwisa One sheet, two lights

A model of a handmade paper sheet in two lights at once. Move the boundary and see which traces of production appear and which vanish, and what none of them says about where the sheet was made.

Model sheet of handmade paper in two lights Our own diagram, not a photograph. To the left of the movable boundary the sheet is in raking light: a fine felt weave and the shadow of an uneven edge are visible. To the right of it the sheet is in transmitted light: dense laid lines, six vertical chain lines, a demonstration watermark (a circle with three waves) and a thinner, lighter edge are visible.

A model, not a historical object. Origin of the sheet: an open question. The model has none, and real paper with such features would not point to the Kwisa either without documents (limits of inference).

Reading the trace and the role of water

  1. 1Vat
  2. 2Mould
  3. 3Press
  4. 4Drying room

Vat: fibres dispersed in water. In this model it gives the background (evenness of the stock, the “cloudiness” visible against the light), not a separate trace to examine. The stages follow the description by the Paper Museum for Duszniki-Zdrój, not a reconstruction of Ławszowa.

1Watermark

Raking lightThe mark hardly stands out. At most a faint change of shadow where there are fewer fibres.

Transmitted lightThe outline brightens: fewer fibres remained above the mould wire, so the paper is thinner there and lets more light through.

Stage 2, mould. Water drains through the mould wires, and the wire pattern holds back fewer fibres.

Cautiously allowed

The outline corresponds to a wire pattern on the screen or mould. It can be compared with the description of how the sheet is formed.

Does not follow

A watermark also occurs in machine-made paper (a claim carried over from V2, to be verified), so on its own it does not prove hand papermaking. It does not point to Ławszowa: this compilation has no mark design assigned to that place. The mark on the model is a demonstration.

2Chain lines and laid lines

Raking lightOnly a fine micro-relief remains. The regular grid hardly shows.

Transmitted lightDense, horizontal streaks (laid lines) and sparser, wider, vertical bands (chain lines, the supporting wires of the mould) are visible.

Stage 2, mould. Water seeps between the mould wires, and the fibres settle a little more thinly over the wires.

Cautiously allowed

The pattern of lines reflects the wires of the mould or screen. It can be compared with the description of how the sheet is formed.

Does not follow

The pattern alone does not distinguish hand papermaking from machine-made paper (such structures were also reproduced by machine, a claim from V2 to be verified) and gives neither a date nor a mill. The model has no scale, so the spacing of the chain lines in millimetres must not be read from it.

3Felt mark

Raking lightThe raking light brings out a fine weave: light and dark bands of imprinted wool.

Transmitted lightThe weave almost disappears. It is a surface relief, not a difference in the amount of fibre the light has to pass through.

Stage 3, press. Under the pressure of the press, water is squeezed out of a stack of sheets interleaved with felts, and the weave of the felt is imprinted in the wet stock.

Cautiously allowed

The mark is a record of the stage of pressing on felt.

Does not follow

It does not point to the Kwisa or to an age. It does not say what kind of felt it was or who used it.

4Deckle edge

Raking lightThe edge casts a shadow on the table; an uneven line with loose fibres is visible.

Transmitted lightThe edge is thinner and lighter, but still uneven.

Stage 2, mould, and stage 4, drying room. The suspension drains beneath the frame of the mould and sets the edge, and during drying the sheet shrinks further. Assigning the edge to the mould and drying-room stages is a decision of this write-up (in V2: vat and drying room), to be verified.

Cautiously allowed

An uneven edge suggests that the edge was not trimmed.

Does not follow

It proves neither the place nor the time of making. The shape of the edge alone does not say who made the sheet or where.

Our own diagram in a 5 : 7 proportion, with no scale in millimetres and no reference to any historical object. The watermark (a circle with three waves) is a demonstration pattern, not the watermark of any paper mill. Two lights on one sheet is a comparative device, not a single photograph. The visibility ratings are qualitative, not measured. The light in the close-up is determined by the numbered point, not by the whole frame.

Observation and hypothesis

What lies in the paper and what has to be found outside it

The four traces on the sheet are observations. The question “where does this paper come from?” begins only beyond the edge of the sheet and requires other evidence than light, a magnifier or the pattern of wires.

I seein the sheet

Laid lines, chain lines, watermark, felt weave, edge. Each of these can be shown on the paper itself, as above.

I understandin the description of the technology

How such a trace arises: mould wires, a press with felt, drying. This is knowledge of the technology from a museum description, not of a particular specimen.

Edge of the sheet: below it the paper settles nothing by itself

When?not established

The date has to be established from other sources, for example a dated document or a comparison of the mark with documented designs. It does not follow from the mere presence of lines or a mark.

Where?not established

The place of manufacture requires a document that ties the paper to a particular mill. This compilation of sources has no such document for Ławszowa. That is a gap in the material, not proof that the mill is ruled out.

Three hasty conclusions and why none follows from the sheet

It has a watermark and chain lines, so it comes from the paper mill in Ławszowa.

These traces tie the sheet to a tool (mould, screen), not to a place. For Ławszowa, the mark design and the mill’s documents are missing here.

It was found in Lower Silesia, so it was made at the nearest paper mill on the Kwisa.

Paper was a commodity and it travelled. The place where it was found is not the place where it was made. The records of the town of Mirsk are a municipal fonds, not the archive of a paper mill.

This compilation has no design from Ławszowa, so Ławszowa is ruled out.

The absence of a design in the compilation is a gap in the material, not negative evidence. The question of origin stays open both ways.

Place, only after separating observation from hypothesis

Ławszowa on the Kwisa: only as much as the source says

Maciej Szymczyk, in his study of papermaking in Lower Silesia, mentions a paper mill in Ławszowa alongside the date c. 1872. This is a mention from that study: it is neither a confirmed date for the beginning of papermaking in the village nor a full chronology of the mill. The link comes from V2 and was not checked at this stage.

The trace of a paper mill invites us to read the landscape through work, raw materials and transport. The view of the river alone, however, does not show where the mill got its water, what machines it had or what exactly it produced. Such answers require documents concerning the particular factory. The sheet model and the description of the stages come from a technology reconstructed in Duszniki-Zdrój, so it does not follow from them that the 19th-century paper mill in Ławszowa used the same raw material and equipment.

What this compilation does not contain (missing data, not zero):

Where the mill got its water
absent from the compilation
What machines it had
absent from the compilation
What exactly it produced
absent from the compilation
Whether its watermark design is known
absent from the compilation (does not mean: did not exist)

There is no map here because we do not have verified geometry. A photograph of the river itself: The Kwisa in Ławszowa, photo by Brandnewshoes, Wikimedia Commons, licence CC BY 3.0. It is a photograph of the river, not of a paper mill. It is not embedded in the page so that the page works offline.

Sources

Sources for further reading

For the editor to verify

  • Whether Szymczyk’s study really ties the mention of the paper mill in Ławszowa to the date c. 1872.
  • The description of stages and traces in the Paper Museum catalogue (p. 24), and the assignment of the deckle edge to the mould and drying-room stages. This is a change from V2, where the edge was assigned to the vat and drying room.
  • The claim from V2 that chain lines and watermarks were also reproduced in machine-made paper.
  • The qualitative visibility ratings of the traces in both lights: these are a judgement of the model, not a measurement.
  • Rights to the photograph of the river on Commons: the page contains only a link.