16/10/2023
In Switzerland, C. Briquet (1839-1918), a pioneer in watermark research, dedicated his life to gathering information on watermarks. Les filigranes, published in Geneva, Paris and Leipzig in 1907, is a monumental work comprising a collection of 16,000 watermarks found in paper produced in 1600 or earlier. The oldest watermark that Briquet discovered is one printed on paper produced in 1282. This book classifies watermarks by forms, such as "aigle (eagle)", "boeuf (bull)," etc., and records the size of the paper with watermarks and the place where the paper was produced, as well as where and when the paper was used.
