Yun Xie

I am on the way to Würzburg on the anniversary of the Bishop of Würzburg’s death……

The font would appear to be English 111 Adagio CE, available for the highly presidential sum of just $39.75 USD

Note "The" is not kerned correctly

(see perspective-corrected still for reference)

This layout must have been a true headache for a 1598 typesetter, who must have tested it over and over again before he dared to printed it……

I find the kana rotated 90 degrees really interesting, I shared similar layouts before ( I suppose you remember?)…..

Delighted that our Decolonizing Chinese History Roundtable is now available in Chinese translation as a book! Thanks to the wonderful team at Uli books and for my brilliant co-authors @jimmillward.bsky.social @catielila.bsky.social Taomo Zhou, and James Evans
www.bookrep.com.tw?md=gwindex&c...

Vincent van Gogh made this lithography of “potato eaters” by himself and sent it to his brother Theo and some friends as a prior announcement of the painting.
1885.
Litho technique allowed artists to express their own artistic style in a mass production way without compromising the quality.

David Beckham has been knighted. Great news for him. But the British Royal household could choose a better design for the medal box, rather than the sans-serif font and some slightly dubious foil stamping…..

Tian Wang’s Talisman, ward off disasters and banish evil spirits. From recent purchases,
perfect for Halloween.

Text: "The Black Vampyre; Legend of St. Domingo" by Uriah Derick D'Arcy written in 1819. The story of an enslaved man in St Domingo (modern day Haiti) who was thrown overboard as his enslaver attempted to kill him. He not only survives, he lives forever, and marries one of his enslaver's descendants. Reminds me of "Sinners" in a way

Wanna hear a scary story?

The first American vampire was Black.

Seriously.

78 years before Dracula appeared in American literature, there was "The Black Vampyre" by Uriah D'Arcy.

It was written in 1819 as an antislavery critique and the effect the Haitian Revolution had on the States

At a printing art fair, I found a Chinese woodblock, carved on both sides双面雕刻. Combine elements of folk religion and medicine: at the top are Guanyin zuolian 观音座莲 and Huguo jiangjun 护国将军 (referring to Nezha哪吒). Below seem to be some medical prescriptions, such as Siwu Huadu Tang 四物化毒汤 and so on.

In the special collections exhibition at the KU Leuven Library, two 18th-century silk prints: one a graduation thesis and the other a congratulatory poem, both common subjects for silk printing at the time. @drkarrschmidt.bsky.social

A palm print at the top of a document, with the whirls and lines of the palm and fingerprints clearly visible.

In colonial India, William Herschel introduced fingerprinting in the 1850s to authenticate identity on legal documents.

Influenced by colonial ideologies, his experiments laid the foundations for modern forensic identification, codifying the hand as a scientific marker of identity.

#handoftheweek

A unicorn watermark in one of the oldest European paper sheets. Source: https://memoryofpaper.eu/apccv/apccv.php?Signatura=1475.1

Just a 1399 unicorn watermark from a paper manufacturer from Valencia to make your day. Friends of #paperhistory know that these paper sheets of around 1400 are among the first sheets of European paper to appear on the market. European #bookhistory was a different game afterwards. #skystorians

In the metal-type era, the way European punchcutters tracked the flow of straight lines, curves, ascenders, and descenders is strikingly similar to Chinese calligraphy’s sense of structure and strokes, so called 间架结构.

Join us for the online launch of The People of Print: Eighteenth-Century England, a collection of biographical essays about lesser-known figures from 18C book history!

The event is free to attend but booking is essential: www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/book-launc...

#18thC #18c #18thCentury #BookHistory

I saw a 拓片 toolkit in National library gift shop. It could be helpful for understanding the technique…

Next to the China town!

A close-up photograph of two eighteenth-century metal type press punches. We see lots of fine marks and indentations on the surface of the metal.

As part of the Small Performances Project, we are digitising Baskerville’s 18th-century printing punches using Photometric Stereo Photography. This technique captures surface details by varying light angles, revealing tool marks and engraving depth to reconstruct the typographic process in 3D!

Find a new flavor chips at toko, not sure if I should try: stir fried razor clams!

K-pop star, Blackpink’s Jennie just launched her own brand Korean font, Zen Serif.

Little joy of archival research: spotting typos!
大平—> 太平
原木—>原本

It is a 19c Brill’s catalog for clients, supposed to be their best quality…..

At Leiden University Library’s Special Collections, came across a lithograph portrait of missionary Karl Gutzlaff with his Chinese name 郭实猎. Printed by Wed. P. Barbiers in Zwolle.
"Wed" was a common label in the printing trade when a widow continued her late husband’s business.

What a special year…..

A waffle iron that forms keyboard waffles.

Seasonal greetings for both the #bookhistory and #digitalhistory folks: a keyboard waffle iron. 🗃️

A fine made book (1919) about Amsterdam printer Spin uses different symbolic en-têtes (by Dirk Nijland) for each chapter, e.g.:

Half raised curtain: story begins;
Rise of lithography;
Impact of Belgian independence;
Rail and shipping networks shaping book trade.

An early advert for Chinese classes at SOAS, c. 1920 #EYAEducation ow.ly/QPaV50WNtZZ

Front cover of the pamphlet, with Chinese and English titles (Phonetic picture dictionary = 看圖識字) and related information, "The National phonetic symbols and word-forms interpreted by mimetic and illustrative cuts arranged according to rhyme endings," "Phonetic Committee Number 22."

Page 1 of the pamphlet. Includes various words with "p" sound and illustrations.

Preface to the text, in Chinese and English.

A little treat to myself for my 35th birthday. An illustrated 1920 pamplet on 'Bopomofo,' the Chinese transliteration system instituted by RoC and still in use in Taiwan. search.worldcat.org/title/26031012

17th century men teach you how to be a perfect woman…

Antique book fair in Amsterdam.

Gustave Schlegel (1840-1903). Sinologist at Leiden.

Today, with the heart of a pilgrim, I visited the grave of Johann Joseph Hoffmann, the 1st professor of Sinology and Japanology in Leiden.
To my surprise, just one gravestone away, lies Taco Roorda, the 19th-century professor of Javanese.

Groenesteeg graveyard Leiden.