Watermarks

The marks in the paper, and what they can date

A watermark dates the sheet a print is on, which is not the same as dating the printing and is not the same as dating the plate. Across 27 located impressions of Bartsch 20 / New Hollstein 170, 6 carry a recorded mark, one institution records positively that it found none, and 20 say nothing at all. This page assembles the marks, the states the catalogue associates them with, and the silence.

Distinct marks attested

Census rows carrying a mark

of 27

Rows recording no watermark found

Rows silent on the question

States for which the catalogue lists no watermarks

III and IV

What a watermark is, and what it can date

Two definitions, and the distinction that governs everything below.

Watermark. A design worked in wire into the papermaking mould, visible as a thinner, brighter area when the sheet is held to the light. Because papermakers' moulds were in use for limited periods, an identified watermark can narrow the years in which a sheet of paper — and therefore an impression printed on it — was made.

Countermark. A smaller secondary mark, often initials, placed in the other half of the sheet from the main watermark. It can identify a particular mill or maker where the main mark is generic.

The distinction that matters for this plate: an identified watermark dates the paper. It gives the years in which a particular mould was in use, and therefore the years in which the sheet was made. A sheet can sit in a stack for a long time before anything is printed on it, and a plate can be printed long after the paper was made. So a watermark sets a bound and does not settle a printing date on its own.

How a mark is recorded. Photography with the light source behind the sheet rather than in front of it, so the paper's own structure — laid lines, chain lines, watermarks, thinning, repairs — becomes visible. It is the standard way to record a watermark, and it requires a conservator's judgement about handling.

Full definitions of these and every other term this record uses are in the glossary — see watermark, countermark, chain lines and laid paper.

Marks attested in impressions of this plate

One row per distinct mark. A mark gets a page here only where a census row attests it — a page for a watermark nobody has recorded on an impression of this plate would be a page about nothing.

Mark	Impressions	Recorded by	Catalogue associates it with state
Strasbourg lily	2	The British Museum; Bonhams (sale 27424, lot 2, London, 13 December 2022)	I and II
Arms of Ravensburg	1	National Gallery of Victoria	II
Basilisk	1	The British Museum	II
Foolscap	1	National Gallery of Art	II
Countermark: the letters RP with a trefoilcountermark	1	The Morgan Library & Museum	not named in any state’s paper list

Two further marks appear in the catalogue’s own paper list for state II — Arms of Bristol and Basel crosier — and are attested by no row in this census. They are named here and given no page, because there is nothing this record could put on one.

What the catalogue records, state by state

The New Hollstein lists the papers it saw in each state. Read this beside the state atlas: the lists are the catalogue's, not this project's, and they describe impressions the catalogue examined.

State	Papers the catalogue records	In this census
I	Strasbourg lily; Strasbourg lily with initials BA, c. 1638	no row carries one
II	Arms of Bristol, Arms of Ravensburg, Basel crosier, Basilisk (c. 1640–47), Foolscap and its variants, and Strasbourg lily	6
III	The catalogue lists no watermarks for this state	no row carries one
IV	The catalogue lists no watermarks for this state	no row carries one

Which institutions record a mark at all

The field is not standard across collections. Some print rooms record a watermark with a Hinterding variant and a date range; others leave it empty; one records positively that it found none. Those are three different pieces of evidence and this census keeps them apart.

Institution	Accession	State	Watermark, as they word it
National Gallery of Art	1943.3.7201	II	Foolscap
National Gallery of Victoria	19-4	II	Arms of Ravensburg (variant C.a.) - fragments with battlements appearing as two towers with gate between, on a console
The British Museum	1910,0212.376	II	Basilisk (Hinterding catalogue, variant A'.a., datable c.1641-47 [detail of wing only])
The British Museum	F,4.25	II	Probably Strasbourg lily (Hinterding catalogue, variant ZZ.zz [detail of top only])
The Morgan Library & Museum	RvR 24	II	Countermark: Letters 'RP' with trefoil
Bonhams (sale 27424, lot 2, London, 13 December 2022)	—	II	Partial Strasbourg Lily
Cleveland Museum of Art	1942.874	—	None recorded (the support_materials watermarks array is present and empty)

The remaining 20 rows carry no watermark field. The honest reading of that is “not looked at”, not “no watermark”: recording one needs the sheet photographed in transmitted light, which most institutions have not done for this print. The absence is data, and it is the reason this page exists.

And the sheet this project holds

No watermark has been observed in it. The sheet has not been examined in transmitted light, has not been seen by a conservator, and has not been photographed at all. This record asserts nothing about its paper beyond what the acquisition documentation states, which is that it is laid paper.

An identification would be the single most useful thing anyone could contribute. It is logged as an open research question — Does the sheet carry a watermark, and can it narrow the period in which this impression was printed? — and if you can help with the imaging, or you recognise a mark from a description on one of the pages below, please write.

Take the data

It is CC0. No key, no attribution required.

/api/v1/census.csv — every row, watermark field included
/api/v1/states — the state atlas, including the catalogue’s paper lists