Napoleonic Era Styles And Writing Instruments

[MimiToto]

Does anyone have more specific information as to the writing styles prominently used in France during Napoleon Bonaparte's lifetime? And the dip pen Nib type they used, and modern close equivalents?

 

All I have to go on are photographs of Napoleon and contemporary's letters.

 

this one looks like a roundhand with Pfannenfeder type nib? or Italic stub?

http://hybridtechcar.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/01/pocherk_0117.jpg

 

So the first question is, what types of nibs did people in that era use? or was it just a variety of everything except copperplate types?

[fountainpagan]

Here you have some leters from Victor Hugo

 

http://www.museedeslettres.fr/public/sous-thematique/victor-hugo/55

 

And all of these are from the same period

 

https://www.google.fr/search?q=manuscrits+du+temps+de+napoleon+bonaparte&rlz=1C1RNNN_enFR371FR371&espv=2&biw=1152&bih=655&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ei=Mh1CVObwJYXKaIbkgPgF&ved=0CAYQ_AUoAQ

[dcwaites]

Napoleon died in 1821. Replaceable metal dip pen nibs were developed early in the 1800s, but didn't come in to common use until the 1830s. Until then, most people still used trimmed feather quills. Even then, the use of quills was not uncommon until the 1860s.

 

However, even in the 1700s members of the aristocracy did have custom made dip pens made (probably by jewellers) that didn't have replaceable nibs. However, the metal of those nibs (usually a gold alloy) was much thicker than the stamped metal steel nibs of the 1830s onwards and didn't show the flex of the thinner nibs.

 

My feeling is that the letter shown was probably written with a quill

[MimiToto]

Thankyou both for the replies.

I was looking at the dates of steel nib development aswell, but the Napoleon letter looks much too clean and uniform to have been written with a quill, would a Brause Jsenlorn produce the same effect?

the Victor Hugo letters posted by fountainpegan would have been much later than the pre-empire ones, and looks like steel nib.

[andreasn]

It looks very quill written to me. I have made a couple of quills myself and my writing with them looks very much like that, just a little less uniform probably since The quality of my quills isn't as good and I probably don't dip it as often.

[andreasn]

This is a litte text I wrote with a quill. I think i lokks very similar.

 

I just hope forging napoleons signature isn't illegal!

 

[dcwaites]

I don't know that forging Napoleon's signature is illegal, but it may have people wanting to put you into a room with nice, soft walls...

[penrivers]

Well , I remember few years ago somebody, I think an historian modified a date in a document of the civil war in USA , and inmediatly received a visit from the FBI.

Btw that document in the op post was written in Moscow, perhaps among the flames around the Kremlin. What a pity I don't know French, does anybody can translate? I am Napoleon's fan. Nice handwriting btw but it probably belongs to a secretary, I am sure that only the signature comes from Napoleón ¿ why?, the letters in Napoleón´s signature are wider than the text.

Edited October 20, 2014 by penrivers