SAMPLE BOOK OF THE FANCY PAPER FACTORY ASCHAFFENBURG de Frigge, Karli - 1993

(Joppe, Netherlands: Frits Knuf, 1993. cloth with paper sample inset on cover, slipcase. Marbling. narrow 8vo. cloth with paper sample inset on cover, slipcase. (xx), 26+(4) pages. Issued as Volume I in Sample Book series. Limited edition of 110 signed and numbered copies. Fine condition. Original samples of 90 decorated papers on twenty-six accordion-fold pages; they cover the 150 year history of this fine paper factory in Aschaffenburg, Germany. Karli Frigge provides a history of the factory which began in 1811 and closed in 1968. During this time it was Europe's largest factory for decorated, marbled, and embossed papers. Frigge also describes their techniques and includes a brief bibliography. The samples show marbled papers, paste paper, roller-printed end-papers, heavily embossed and roller-embossed papers, and leather and wood imitation papers. An incredible work on the history of marbled paper.



Alois Dessauer (born as Aron Baruch Dessauer; 1763-1850) was a former financier and army supplier at the elector's court in Mainz, he then moved to Aschaffenburg and became an important manufacturer of decorated papers. In 1810 he founded the firm Alois Dessauer Buntpapierfabrik Aschaffenburg. After his death in 1850 his two sons Josef (1794-1853) and Franz Johann (1805-1867) split up and Josef became successor to his father and became the owner of the firm Alois Dessauer whereas Franz Johann founded a new business under his own name. In 1859 his business went public under its new firm name Actien-Gesellschaft Buntpapier & Leimfabrikation Aschaffenburg and issued stock on the exchange. Franz Johann's son Philipp Dessauer (1837-1900), an entrepreneur in the paper industry himself entered his father's business after attending high school in 1852. In 1860 he was appointed chairman of the board and over the next four decades he aggressively took over decorated and fancy paper manufactures all over Germany, with the first being all of his business competitors based in Aschaffenburg, among them the Buntpapierfabrig AG, the A. Nees & Co. Kg and the Buntpapierfabrik Franz Dahlem & Co. Other businesses he bought include a white paper and cellulose factory with production facilities in Damm and Stockstadt; E. T. Kretschmar in Dresden; the Bunt- und Luxuspapierfabrik in Goldbach; the Gebrüder Willisch in Schneeberg; P. Schnell in Kassel; Oswald Enterlein in Niedersedlitz, W. Stern & Co in Fürth; the firm of Sell in Stuttgart; Ludwig Bahr in Kassel; and A. Dittberner in Breslau. In 1880, Philipp Dessauer was one of the founders and first chairman of the association of German pulp manufacturers. Both businesses of the Dessauer brothers existed side by side until 1908 when they merged in the Buntpapierfabrik Aschaffenburg, one of the world's largest manufactures of decorated papers.