Dard Hunter's Marbling Tools

This month's feature is a special collection of marbling tools. The artifacts in this set are numbered in the Dard Hunter Collection from #819 to #842. These tools were used personally by Dard Hunter in the early 1900's when he made marbled paper. The wooden tray has two sections - the large compartment was used to hold water, carrageen, and paint, and the smaller compartment on the left was for tools. Brushes were dipped in paint and then used to fling spots of color onto the surface of the marbling bath; different splatter patterns were made depending on the brush thickness and length. The straw brush served the same purpose, but at a larger scale.  

Paints were kept in small glass or ceramic jars, or deposited in the row of rectangular, metal paint tins. The large wooden rake was dipped into the metal paint tins, and then the paint was dropped onto the bath in evenly-spaced drops of alternating colors. There are several types of combs with metal teeth spaced at different intervals, and they were dragged across the paint surface to create linear patterns like those found in Nonpareil and Old Dutch marbling. For freehand designs such as the French Curl, a stylus like the wooden one in the left tool tray was drawn through the paint. The wooden bowl was used to hold a viscous liquid called carrageen, which is used as a thick sizing that prevents paint from sinking to the bottom of the marbling tray. Carrageen is traditionally made from seaweed, and the carrageen that Dard used was made from a red sea algae more commonly known as Irish Moss, which has been dried and placed in the bowl.  

The western marbling process is simple, but requires more preparation than other forms of marbling, such as suminagashi. To begin, the paper must be brushed with alum so that it retains paint during the marbling process. The marbling bath is filled with sizing, traditionally made from a mixture of water and carrageen that has been sitting for several hours, long enough to allow any bubbles to dissipate. The paints, generally oil or acrylic, are mixed with small amounts of dispersant to aid in their spread when dropped onto the bath - more dispersant produces thinner spots with more spread, while paints with very little dispersant produce thick, concentrated spots. Once the bath has been filled, the paints prepared, and the paper dry, the marbler takes the paint and drops or sprays it onto the bath using brushes or large wooden rakes. If left at this stage, the spotted marbling patterns are called Turkish or Spot marbling, and are one of the oldest types of marbling produced. From this stage the paint may be manipulated by combs and styluses to create more complicated patterns. Other chemical dispersant may also be added to the paint while it is in the bath to break it up into lacy patterns, although this gradually contaminates the size. If the marbler is satisfied with a pattern, a sheet of the alum-brushed paper is gently laid on top of the bath, avoiding air bubbles, and then removed and rinsed to remove excess pigment and size. 

Dard Hunter spent time in Germany in 1910 learning bookbinding, and in the process produced marbled sheets that would have been meant for decorating hand-bound books. Hunter used the tools here as his personal set to produce marbled papers, many of which are comb-marbled papers that are in our collection today. 

We hope that you enjoyed this peek at our collection! We'll be back next month with another artifact. Have a great October!