Resum

The decorated papers in the eighteenth-century printed endpapers in the Historical-Artistic Binding Database of the Royal Library

Objective: to analyse the artistic bindings of the eighteenth-century prints stored in the Historical-artistic Binding Database of the Royal Library, in order to locate the endpapers made with decorated papers, and to classify and describe them according to the proposals of the specialist literature.

Methodology: The records from the database were retrieved using the 'date' field, and the information is extracted from the 'endpapers' and 'notes' fields. The reproductions of the endpapers were analysed, identified and described following the classification model of decorated papers inspired by the works of Professor Carpallo Bautista, consisting of five techniques and their variants. Finally, a comparative analysis was carried out.

Results: Among the 382 eighteenth-century prints with artistic bindings, ten were located and analysed that include endpapers decorated with xylographic plates, 135 with marbled or mottled papers (with designs corresponding to seven variants), four with paste-glued papers, three with dotted papers, 18 with gold and embossed papers, and four of other kinds such as silver or percaline paper.