Peewit paper

Simon Beattie sends via the SHARP listserv a link to a nice post of his about Kiebitzpapier, a speckled brownish paper which was apparently quite common in German book manufacturing in the eighteenth century. Kiebitz is the German word for a lapwing (Vanellus vanellus), a peewit*, and he explains the name by a resemblance between the paper and the coloration of lapwings’ eggs. The website buntpapier.eu, in addition to lapwing paper shows us several examples of their Sprenkelpapier, and goes on to try to interest us in other bird’s egg-colored papers. The term Sprenkelpapier sort of gives the game away on how to make this kind of paper — to achieve a speckled effect you sprinkle colors onto the base sheet. Here’s their selection of birds’ egg papers: Here you can see, from top left, Blackbird, Oystercatcher, Wagtail, across the top, and then Curlew, Flycatcher, Great northern diver, Skylark, Warbler, Another kind of flycatcher, Herring gull, Lapwing, Black-headed gull, Robin redbreast,…