Strasbourg lily

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.

For this mark the census carries 2 transcriptions:

• Probably Strasbourg lily (Hinterding catalogue, variant ZZ.zz [detail of top only]) — The British Museum, F,4.25
• Partial Strasbourg Lily — Bonhams (sale 27424, lot 2, London, 13 December 2022)

Every one of those records describes a fragment rather than a whole mark. A watermark sits in one part of a full sheet of papermaking paper, and a print sheet is a cut-down piece of one, so a partial mark is often all there is to work from — see trimmed in the glossary.

One record hedges the identification itself, in the institution’s own words. That hedge is carried through here rather than tidied away: an identification stated as probable is not an identification.

One record cites a variant from Hinterding’s published watermark concordance. This project does not hold that concordance, so the variant designation is transcribed and not checked, and no dating is inferred from it here.

It would date the paper, and only the paper. A watermark identified to a mould gives the years that mould was in use. It does not give the year the plate was printed: paper can be stored, and a plate can be printed decades after the sheet was made. Anything stronger than a bound would be an overclaim.

It would not by itself settle the state. The catalogue names this mark among the papers of state I and II. That is a statement about the impressions the catalogue examined, not a rule about every impression — and since the catalogue records no papers at all for states III and IV, there is nothing to compare against on that side. A mark from an earlier state’s list would be a fact worth having and would not close the question.

The state attribution would still be unconfirmed. The record’s position on this sheet is unchanged by anything on this page: it is catalogued by the auction house as New Hollstein 170, state III of IV; state II is not excluded; the work visible in state III is not Rembrandt’s; and the date this sheet was printed is unknown. The determination that would move it is a specialist reading the line-work against the catalogue’s diagnostic features, not a watermark.

And it would have to be recorded first. 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. That imaging has not been done, and it is sequenced after a conservator has looked at the sheet’s current housing.