Brass rubbing was originally a largely

British British may refer to: Peoples, culture, and language * British people, nationals or natives of the United Kingdom, British Overseas Territories, and Crown Dependencies. ** Britishness, the British identity and common culture * British English, ...

enthusiasm for reproducing onto paper monumental brasses – commemorative

brass Brass is an alloy of copper (Cu) and zinc (Zn), in proportions which can be varied to achieve different mechanical, electrical, and chemical properties. It is a substitutional alloy: atoms of the two constituents may replace each other with ...

plaques found in churches, usually originally on the floor, from between the thirteenth and sixteenth centuries. The concept of recording textures of things is more generally called making a rubbing. What distinguishes rubbings from frottage is that rubbings are meant to reproduce the form of something being transferred, whereas frottage is usually only intended to use a general texture. Brass rubbings are created by laying a sheet of paper on top of a brass (then called "

latten Historically, the term "latten" referred loosely to the copper alloys such as brass or bronze that appeared in the Middle Ages and through to the late-18th and early-19th centuries. Such alloys were used for monumental brasses, in decorative effect ...

" - a zinc-copper alloy produced via the obsolete

calamine brass Calamine brass is brass produced by a particular alloying technique using the zinc ore calamine directly, rather than first refining it to metallic zinc. Direct zinc smelting appears to have been unknown in Europe until the mid-18th century, even th ...

process) and rubbing the paper with

graphite Graphite () is a crystalline form of the element carbon. It consists of stacked layers of graphene. Graphite occurs naturally and is the most stable form of carbon under standard conditions. Synthetic and natural graphite are consumed on large ...

wax Waxes are a diverse class of organic compounds that are lipophilic, malleable solids near ambient temperatures. They include higher alkanes and lipids, typically with melting points above about 40 °C (104 °F), melting to giv ...

, or

chalk Chalk is a soft, white, porous, sedimentary carbonate rock. It is a form of limestone composed of the mineral calcite and originally formed deep under the sea by the compression of microscopic plankton that had settled to the sea floor. Chalk ...

, a process similar to rubbing a pencil over a piece of paper placed on top of a coin. In the past rubbings were most commonly made using the equivalent of what nowadays is called "

butcher's paper Butcher paper is a type of kraft paper originally sold to butchers for the purpose of wrapping meat and fish. It is now used for a wide variety of purposes, notably in primary education where it is used for handicraft, arts and crafts, such as han ...

" roll of whitish paperlaid down over the brass and rubbed with "heelball", a waxy glob of black crayon once used to shine shoes. Now most brass rubbers purchase special paper rolls of heavy duty black velvety material, and the crayons are gold, silver or bronze (other colours are available). According to the Monumental Brass Society, the practice of brass rubbing does not harm a brass if competently carried out, assuming the brass is securely fixed. Nonetheless, in many cases creating rubbings is banned by historical sites and churches. Brass rubbing centres with replicas of original brass plaques have become a prime source for brass rubbings in the UK. Replicas are often not the same scale as the original.

References

* ''Monumental Brasses as Art and History'' ed. Jerome Bertram, published by Alan Sutton.

External links

Monumental Brass Society

History.uk.com's guide to brass rubbing

Artistic techniques {{Printmaking-stub

See also

References

External links