"copperplate" with a quill

[Columba Livia]

I remember reading somewhere that what we now call copperplate was originally written with a broad cut quill and it was rotated as you wrote in order to make the hairlines. I have been practising with the pointed pen, but I thought I'd like to see what it's like to write as Bickham and the like did. I used a feather from a wood pigeon (Columba Palumbus) which I had found on a green while I was out cycling and which I hardened in sand.

 

Although the feather is very thin, too thin for my liking, I found to my surprise that using a quill for this script feels much more natural and intuitive to me than the pointed pen. I'm not sure where to get a good supply of goose quills in the UK, but I shall look out for some, since I think I'd rather write this script with a quill than a pointed pen.

 

 

http://i38.tinypic.com/152yeeg.jpg

http://i36.tinypic.com/x3z3lz.jpg

http://i36.tinypic.com/zn56bt.jpg

 

I wrote a review of the pigeon feather here:

 

https://www.fountainpennetwork.com/forum/index.php?showtopic=129983

 

If you're interested.

[Enai]

Oh my gosh, this is gorgeous! And with a pigeon feather! I am duly impressed.

[caliken]

c1733, George Bickham produced a small book entitled "Penmanship made easy" in which he gave clear instructions on lettering technique with a narrow, square-edged nib. He said "never turn your pen, nor alter the position of your hand. Make all your body strokes with the Full, & all Hair Strokes with the corner of your Nib" Unfortunately, it's his engraved version of his writing which we see, and most of these engraved examples are impossible to replicate with an edged nib. This must have let to considerable frustration by students.

 

The writing, produced by Bickham and the other writing masters of the time, must have been very different from the engraved version with which we are familiar through "The Universal Penman" as they are impossible to produce with an edged nib. The flexible nib came into being as the only way to replicate the copper engravings. This script we now know as English Roundhand / Copperplate (for obvious reasons)/ Engravers Script / Engrossers Script.

 

I applaud your very valiant attempt at replicating Copperplate writing with an edged nib, but IMHO you're probably attempting the impossible.

 

To write as Bickham and the other writing masters did, would be wonderful and a really worthwhile enterprise, but......no one knows how their original writing looked, as, to the best of my knowledge, no example still exists!

 

I made an attempt at something similar a couple of years ago here. In retrospect, it was just a bit of fun, and not very successful. Admittedly, it was with a metal nib and not a quill, but the principal remains the same, as do the difficulties.

Edited November 4, 2009 by caliken

[ashishwakhlu]

Lovely simply lovely.

 

Ashish

[Fernan]

Caliken is right.

 

Some thirty years ago, in his The Story of Writing (Chapter 8: Copperplate and the Writing Masters, pages 118 to 129), Donald Jackson explained very clearly why and how it is difficult, if not impossible, to write copperplate with a quill. A wonderful book. Reading it is a little like reading a novel. However, it should be read slowly to understand it thoroughly. It was written from a calligrapher's viewpoint. Writing is very physical, even in this "virtual" age.

[Columba Livia]

To write as Bickham and the other writing masters did, would be wonderful and a really worthwhile enterprise, but......no one knows how their original writing looked, as, to the best of my knowledge, no example still exists!

 

Ah, what a great shame. I have a book which deals with documents related to education in England, from the 15th to the 18th centuries (things like school charters, letters of complain about teachers etc) and that reproduces the original document alongside a typeset transcript. Most of the "copperplate style" ones look very obviously like they were written with a broad cut quill (very broad in some cases) in the way of your sample of copperplate with a broad nib. However there are some where it looks to me like they might have used a very thin broad cut and used the natural flex perhaps. These are the ones I'm not sure about:

 

1702:

 

http://i50.tinypic.com/atm4qo.jpg

 

1708/1710:

 

http://i49.tinypic.com/2wez1xj.jpg

 

I presume with the d, the body was done first, and then the ascender afterwards from the left, if it was done with flex for the shade.

Edited November 18, 2009 by Columba Livia

[caliken]

Colomba Livia

 

Thanks for posting these two fascinating documents. For what it's worth, I think that the d was written in one stroke with a narrow edged nib - the ascender being produced last, from right to left. If you try this with any narrow, edged nib, you'll find that it's quite possible. Also, these documents were written at a fair speed, and I think that it's unlikely that the writer would have paused to produce a two-stroke letter......just my opinion, no proof, of course!

 

Ken

Edited November 18, 2009 by caliken

[Maria]

Dear Colomba Livia,

 

I have to give my 'me too' response, in regard to the writings in the picture documents attached to the posts. Gosh I love the "W" and so many other qualities of these old English Documents.

 

I have a 'goose quill' myself, to which has a 'stub' to the nib end. We have re-enactors/living historians at a Colonial Farm, that cuts these quills.

 

It seems much larger than the quill pictured in the post but, I also have some antique pens that are very, very little diameter, that seem to have engraved ivory or bone handle with gold nibs. Both seem not to have flex but--the nib is a very tiny square nib.

 

I would venture the handles that are ivory/bone, would be 1/2 of the diameter of a knitting needle.

 

I enjoy this thread very much.

 

It certainly would be wonderful if we could have Mr. Bickham write for us in the modern world, as his style is my favorite.

 

Respectfully,

Maria

[Flourish]

Amazing what one can do with a pointed stick isn't it?

 

I agree that certain hands need certain nibs. The most responsive nibs are made from quills. Then you have your different dip pen nibs. Then comes our preferred addiction the fountain pen nib. But in the right hands a single style of nib can produce scripts that most of us wouldn't think possible. But it is best for us today to listen and learn from the great masters of the past as they put more time and effort into their penmanship and all the tools and materials associated with it than most of us will ever be able to do. Give me a good xxxf flexible nib (quill, dip or fountain) and I can keep myself entertained for a lifetime.

 

And let's not forget to acknowledge the masters of the great masters like George Bickham himself. Most masters had command of a relatively small amount of scripts and went to engravers like Mr. Bickham to edit and engrave their scripts so fellows like Mr. Bickham had to have an even greater command of hand than all the master penmen which they published.

Edited November 25, 2009 by Flourish

[Nathans_Letters]

So, this thread has been dead for quite some time, but I thought perhaps there might be other interested folk who come across it as I did.

 

From my admittedly short experience with 18th century manuscripts, I have found that handwriting of the day bore many, many similarities to Copperplate. Indeed, if you look at the letters of Nathan Hale (1755-1776), his hand definitely bares the thin up-stroke, thick down-stroke that characterizes Copperplate. In the body of his letters, you can tell he is writing quickly and paying less attention to the perfection of his letter forms, yet still the slant and line-variation are present. There is one letter where he signed his name in what I would consider (I am a novice, so I may well be incorrect) a very good example of "Copperplate" (in the day it was called English Roundhand):

 

Nathan went to Yale, and became a school teacher, so he had more education than most, and his handwriting definitely shows this. His good friend and fellow graduate of Yale, Benjamin Tallmadge, also had some skill with a quill:

 

 

Here is a letter from George Washington, written in 1789:

 

http://www.studyzone.org/testprep/ela4/o/0560037.gif

 

As you can see, often these men, when writing quickly and with less care, did not showcase the usual thick/thin lines we today associate with Copperplate, but they certainly knew how to make them when they desired to, and all wrote with quills. It seems to me very likely that the writing masters of the day wrote in a fashion similar to that shown in engravings, since it seems quite similar (to my unpracticed eye) to what these personal letters show.

Also, I came upon this fascinating tid-bit in The Young Man’s Best Companion and Guide to Useful Knowledge by John Dougall, published in 1815:

 

 

"In selecting examples for imitation, engraved specimens are to be preferred to written : for the engraver working deliberately and mechanically with his tools, and re touching the plate until his work be to his satisfaction, is able to produce letters, words, and lines, much more regular and uniform in shape and proportion than any which, unless the writer be singularly accomplished indeed, can be executed by the hand and pen."

 

The article below (and others on the blog) gives some fascinating hints at how they might have achieved Roundhand with a quill:

 

https://herreputationforaccomplishment.wordpress.com/2014/06/21/how-to-ruin-a-feather-and-make-a-pen/

 

Also Columba Livia, your example of Copperplate with a quill gives me hope that I might someday manage to write Copperplate with a quill myself, as I would very much like to! It's lovely.

Edited April 26, 2016 by Nathans_Letters