antique | egyptianillustrated is the earliest founder’s showing of the face called by the foun
antique | egyptianillustrated is the earliest founder’s showing of the face called by the foundries «antique»: vincent figgins from the 1817 appendix to his 1815 specimen [facsimile: berthold wolpe (ed.), Vincent Figgins Type Specimens 1801 & 1815, printing historical society, london, 1967]. nicolette gray says «His double pica Antique [illustration, ‘Two Lines Small Pica’] is magnificent. It has all the deliberation, the firm, solid, reasonable precision which is the fascination of the Egyptian.» [XIXth Century Ornamented Types and Title Pages, faber & faber, london, 1938, p30]. giving some elevated theory behind the antique, nicolette gray tells us: «But if type tends to be neater it is also richer, as if Wilkie had something of Etty’s bloom or Mulready something of the verve of Lawrence. It has more weight, too; it is emphatically a product of the same period as Inwood’s St Pancras Church (1819-22 ) and Smirke’s British Museum (1823-47). Here is a classicism not altogether illuminated with the sunlight of greek rationalism, the heavy forms are opressed with the burdens of their weight, the shadow of the Egyptian collection which it was to house (installed by troops in 1834) seems cast over the façade of the Museum. It is significant that the typical letter of the period was called at its first appearance Antique but that the alternative name, Egyptian, became the common usage. The distinction between the two civilizations is not always clear in the minds of the revivalists.» [op. cit., p28]. it is unclear, to me, as yet, as to why egyptian stuck as the more usual appellation for this species of type. -- source link
#typography#egyptian#antique#vincent figgins#nicolette gray