New Rijksmuseum archive with high-res images, perfect for a lazy day.

[Arthus]

This topic was imported from the Typophile platform

Some people might know, most won't, but the website of the Rijksmuseum, the Netherlands had an overhaul. Most fancy about this is the overview of their archive, which includes a lot of high-resolution type and lettering material. It is a bit of a search, but there are some real gems to be found and is perfect for lazy browsing on a lazy sunday.

Next to this, I wonder if some people might know of the origin of this type:

It's used by Johannes Enschedé around 1760 as a companion sheet to an etching.

A link to the larger page:
https://www.rijksmuseum.nl/en/collection/RP-P-OB-24.123/letters

The gallery is easy to browse and filtering is quite simple, which includes filtering on colors and techniques. The english version sadly doesn't translate the keywords, so that's a bit of a drawback.

Much can be found at:
https://www.rijksmuseum.nl/en/search?f=1&p=1&ps=12&technique=boekdruk&im...

or

https://www.rijksmuseum.nl/en/search?f=1&p=1&ps=12&type=tekstblad&imgonl...

[Nick Shinn]

… the origin of this type …

Jewelry.

[Ryan Maelhorn]

Jewelry, interesting. I'm kind of halfass trying to get a short essay together about the connections between jewelry making and type designing.

This looks like a great resource, thanks for posting it arthus.

[kentlew]

Arthur — Those look like the Dubbelde Mediaan Versierde Caapitalen acquired by Enschedé from Mathias Rosart in 1768 and used for a few words on the title page of their type specimen from that year.

[Arthus]

Thanks! I'll have a look what else I can find, might be something for a pet research project after I'm done with my current one. From what I've been able to look at, some should be in the Enschedé collection so that's only a busstop or 4 away, that is of course if I can arrange a visit ;)

[Ryan Maelhorn]

Anybody have any idea how that site was put together code-wise? It looks really nice. Wordpress, perhaps?