Caslon matrices [realia].
Items
Details
Title
Caslon matrices [realia].
Created/published
18-20 century.
Description
72 object ; 2.5 high x 1 cm deep (sizes vary) and from 2–5mm wide according to the letter.
Note
This is a PRELIMINARY RECORD. It may contain incorrect information. Please email catalog@folger.edu for assistance.
Place of creation/publication
France.
Item Details
Call number
Teach.Col. 270644
Folger-specific note
Purchase made possible by The Georges Lurcy Acquisitions Fund. From dealer's description: 72 copper and brass matrices for Caslon Small Pica Black used at the Fonderie Radiquer et Cie in Paris. 63 matrices are from the Caslon foundry, London, 18th-century; 9 are for accented sorts, presumably made in Paris, 20th-century. 25 high x 5mm deep (sizes vary) and from 2–5mm wide according to the letter. The early matrices are irregular in shape, the upper case mostly composite with a copper face and brass back, the rest all copper as follows. The early matrices have multiple indentations in the sides, presumably where they were held in the mould by the spring; 3 have trial or discarded strikes on the face and 4 have a cross scribed on the face near the base. Although the sizes vary, the crucial distance from the top of the matrix to the base line of the letter is constant. " From dealer's description: William Caslon (1692 or 3–1766) is best known today for his Roman and Italic fonts, for which he cut the punches, but his blackletter types were also highly regarded in his time and later. According to Talbot Baines Reed, ‘Caslon was praised for his faithful reproduction of the genuine Old English; other founders, like Baskerville, did not even attempt the letter.’ The style had been introduced by Wynken de Worde using French matrices and it was the purity of the French type that Caslon imitated in the Pica and Brevier black exhibited in his first specimen of 1734. To these his son William Caslon II (1720–1778) cut punches for the other sizes, including this small pica, exhibited in his 1766 specimen and in later specimens. For their use in France, the Fonderie Radiguer presumably added the accented sorts. It is an appealing irony that the French foundry were casting an English face cut in imitation of French type used by Wynken de Worde in England in the fifteenth century. Notes. Caslon acquired several sizes of blackletter, including a small pica, from the foundry of Robert Mitchel, who in turn inherited material from Godfrey Head. (Reed pp. 201 and 237). However, in his summary of the 1766 specimens, Reed ascribes most of the blackletter sizes to Caslon II and in design they clearly follow Caslon I’s designs for the pica and brevier sizes in his 1734 specimen. In their catalogue of type specimens, Isabelle and André Jammes list a Radiguer specimen of Caslon Roman and Italic of c. 1958 with the note: ‘La fonderie Radiquer proposait des caractères Caslon, fondus dans l’uthentiques matrices de la fonderie anglaise. C’était le seul caractère véritablement ancien vendu en France.’." Ordered from Librairie Roger Gaskell Rare Books, D 9238, 2018-10-04, email quote.
Folger accession
270644