Morgan Library & Museum, New York, MA 1034

Two leaves of laid writing paper folded from a piece of paper to form a portrait-format bifolium of four pages (leaf size 233 x 186 mm.). Written and corrected throughout in iron-gall ink. Now hinged with Japanese paper to backing sheets (258 x 212 mm.) by the Morgan Library and kept within a folder with other similarly hinged items.

The two leaves were folded from a half sheet (233 x 374 mm.) of off-white handmade laid paper formed on a double-faced mould. The chain lines are horizontal to the page and the paper has a crowned post watermark over the date 1813 (watermark 162 x 58 mm.). The watermark was centred vertically on one half of the sheet of paper and now runs horizontally across the two leaves with the top of the watermark to pages 1-2. The watermark reads correctly from the felt side of the paper (pages 1 & 4). The trimmed size of the half sheet is 233 x 374 mm. which allowing for a modest trim implies a sheet size of approximately 476 x 384 mm. or post. The head, fore-edge and tail edges of the folded paper have all been trimmed and are slightly irregular. They were not trimmed against a straight edge or with a stationer’s plough and would seem to have been trimmed after folding. The cut edges are not coloured or gilded.

A guide for a left-hand margin on each of the pages was produced by folding the left hand edge of each leaf in sequence by 30-46 mm. First the spine edge of the folded bifolium was folded once to give a margin to pages 1 and 3. Page 1 was then written, the leaf was turned and its left edge folded to produce the guide for page 2. Pages 1 and 3 were then written (page 3 has the same margin as page 1), finally the second leaf was turned and its edge folded to produce the guide for page 4.

The two leaves have the impression of a further valley fold, centred and running vertically through both leaves, probably from early storage. There is an adhesive residue to the spine edge of page four probably from earlier mounting. The spine fold is entirely split and both leaves have small tears to their tail edge. All of these have been repaired with Japanese paper by the Morgan Library.