One of my guilty pleasures is a long and lazy visit to the Bloomsbury Ephemera Fair in London. I’ve been a huge ephemera fan since I started in the business in the mid-1990s. And by ephemera, I mean those papery or cardy things for ‘ephemeral’ use - they get used once for a period of time and are then typically thrown away or discarded, or they simply degrade until they’re gone. They’re not meant to last.
There’s something so meaningful about ephemera today, especially as it has defied those who created it, and what it was created for, by surviving. At the last fair I went to, I came across these two small printed and diecut paper ‘scraps’, and was quite bedazzled, especially in the midst of a blooming hot Summer. One is titled ‘Die Rose’, the other ‘Narcisse’. Just look at the quality - florally clad beauties amidst fairytale landscapes with attendant bugs, all in an explosion of colours and surrounded by ornate, almost rococo, frames. And each is made from one single sheet of paper.
I use the word ‘scraps’ not as a derogatory term, but as a term for printed and cut pieces of paper that were collected and stuck into albums, or applied as découpage to screens, boxes and other small pieces of furniture, primarily during the Victorian period.
Although it sounds sexist today, the majority of scrap books were made by women and children. That’s just how it was back then, and this was deemed a feminine or childish activity. These activities also represented and reflected the changes that society and culture underwent during the Victorian era - the rise of the middle classes and consumer culture, the growth of leisure activities such as reading and home crafting, and technological advances in the production of printed items like books. These scraps were largely affordable and fashionable, and were consumed in vast quantities across the West.
The epicentre for the production of such ephemera was Germany. That makes sense, as one is titled ‘Die Rose’, indicating German language, rather than an intention to kill a beautiful flowering plant loved by millions.
Just like the use of cutlery at a posh dinner party, let’s work from the outside in. The extravagant, almost rococo, white borders resemble lace. A sheet of paper would be mounted onto and pressed in into a metal die, which would pierce and cut the sheet (hence the term ‘diecut’) and also emboss it to give texture, detail and depth. The same process was used for Victorian Valentines and Christmas cards. The border on ‘Die Rose’ is really quite outstanding - the oval border of the stylised flowers in between the lacework border and the colour printed is exceptionally fine. Look at all those leaves, curlicues and flowers! Compare it to Narcisse, with its more standard lace-like work, and you’ll see what I mean.
Now we move inwards to the images themselves and their level of fine detail. Not only did that require skilful and close work to gain the detail, but it also required a lot of printing work. The process used is lithography, where each colour was applied by using a separate printing plate or ‘stone’. The plates or stones would then be pressed in sequence onto the paper to build up each colour, and thus the entire image. The plates had to be pressed in exactly the same, precise position as otherwise the ‘registration’ would be out, a colour would be off centre, and the image would be ruined. In general terms, the more colours, the more complex and the better a piece is. The variety, graduation and depths of the colours here is truly something to marvel and wonder at. Together with the worked details, a truly exceptional image is built up through the printing process.
So, what are we looking at?
