19th century book

[JOHN HUNTINGTON]

Valerie

If you are going to have digital photograps made anew, have a 
couple made of a very clean page with the light source at a very 
low angle to see if there is any visible texture.  That would be the 
most telling. 


John 

_ * _ * _ * _ * _ * _ * _ * _ * _ * _ * _ *

John C. Huntington, Professor
    (Buddhist art and Practice Methodologies)  
    The Department of the History of Art
    The Ohio State University


----- Original Message -----
From: Valerie J Roebuck <vjroebuck at MACUNLIMITED.NET>
Date: Wednesday, July 27, 2005 1:26 pm
Subject: Re: 19th century book

> Thank you to everyone who has provided information about the 
19th 
> century copy of the Tulsi Ramayana.  I hope shortly to have some 
> digital photos of the work.  I believe it is possible to place 
> relevant photos on the Indology website?
> 
> Valerie J Roebuck
> Manchester, UK
> 
> At 8:49 am -0400 25/7/05, Allen W Thrasher wrote:
> >I find that lithographed books from India often look as much 
like 
> >mss as like books printed from moveable type.  I think it is not 
> >just that the graphemes are somewhat less regular, but that 
the 
> >ink-paper interface (w.w.?) is different from letterpress. 
Graham 
> >Shaw at the British Library has done a study of lithography in 
> India 
> >and is still collecting material on it.  Have you shown it to him? 
> >
> >It is possible, also, that under the inspiration of moveable type 
> >books the scribe was particularly careful to be very regular, 
more 
> >so than traditionally the best scribes would be.  I have in my 
own 
> >library an ed. of the Bhagavatapurana published in Pune in the 
> 1970s 
> >or 1980s made by a brahmacari by hand and reproduced by 
> >photo-offset. You would think it was letterpress, all the more 
so 
> >since the same decorative frame was around the text on each 
page, 
> >done on a transparency and then photographed along with the 
text.
>