Beschreibung:

Description: *Manuscript Frisket sheet fragment. A pair of fragments from a liturgical manuscript with musical notation, probably France 15th century; subsequently reused as a printing mask 'Frisket' and overprinted in red ink in the early 16th century, comprising two vellum fragments cut from a larger leaf, recto with a total of 10 lines of manuscript text in black & red, one initial in blue and one larger initial in red, with six lines of music on 4-line red staves, verso with 17 lines of manuscript text in black, with three lines of music on 4-line red staves, the reverse also heavily overprinted with letterpress text in red ink when reused as a frisket mask, and subsequently cut into strips (two in this case) and reused as strengthening in a binding, maximum dimensions of each fragment 215 x 48mm (approximately 8.5 x 1.75 inches) and 212 x 43mm (approximately 8.25 x 1.75 inches), combined maximum dimensions 232 x 90mm (approximately 9.25 x 3.5 inches) This pair of fragments were discovered in a folio 3 volume Greek & Latin Bible, "Vetus Testamentum..." published Paris: Nicolaum Buon, 1628 (Darlow & Moule 4674), when undergoing restoration in the 1990s. Refer to Dominic Winter 2nd March 2016 auction, lot 331 and the following lot below, which were also discovered in the same set of volumes. Friskets are a rare survival which illustrate the early printing of books in red and black ink. They were often disposed of once their use had ended and therefore only a few examples survive. A frisket was a sheet of material which was used during the early printing process. It was placed between the paper and the printing block, to mask off and protect unprinted areas of the paper sheet from stray ink, allowing all but the red rubrics to be printed through. As a result of this technique the frisket sheet was overprinted in red letterpress. Early printers often recycled medieval manuscript leaves for this purpose, and some were then reused during the bookbinding process. See Margaret M. Smith "Fragments used for 'Servile' Purposes: The St Bride Library Frisket for Early Red Printing," in Linda L. Brownrigg and Margaret M. Smith eds., Interpreting and Collecting Fragments of Medieval Books (Los Altos Hills, Calif.: Red Gull Press, 2000), pp.177-188; and noted by Smith in the St. Bride Journal 'Ultrabold 3' (2007): "The Red-Printing Frisket at St. Bride Library." Elizabeth Savage (Upper). "Red Frisket Sheets, c.1490-1700: The Earliest Artefacts of Colour Printing in the West." Papers of the Bibliographical Society of America 108, no. 4 (December 2014): pp.477-522. "This complex object, a manuscript leaf that was re-used first as a frisket sheet for printing selected text in red in one book and then in the pasteboard in the binding of another, is the earliest artifact of any color printing process in the West." (2)