August 13, 2026, 2:00 p.m. – 3:00 p.m.
Ilse Mühlbacher and Michael Rothe will offer fascinating insights into the world of brocade paper.
Brocade papers are lightly embossed papers that are usually partially decorated with metal leaf. The base papers (e.g., unbleached or colored papers) are covered with metal leaf foils and printed in a copperplate press using a heated, engraved copper plate on a printing felt. Brocade papers originated in Augsburg and first appeared on the market around 1700. Until about 1780, they were primarily produced in the three German cities of Nuremberg, Augsburg, and Fürth.
Ilse Mühlbacher and Michael Rothe offer fascinating insights into the world of brocade papers at Waldegg Castle.
Ilse Mühlbacher
After completing an artistic education with a focus on books and paper, Ilse Mühlbacher explored the techniques used to produce colored papers. She then worked for many years as a book conservator at the Institute for Conservation at the Austrian National Library, where she discovered the incredible wealth of historical colored papers found in books. With access to storage facilities and archives, Ilse Mühlbacher is committed to bringing these treasures to light—particularly through digitization—and making them accessible to the public.
In her presentation, she will discuss the history and origins of these unique colored papers and showcase selected brocade papers from the collection of the Cistercian Abbey of Heiligenkreuz.
Michael Rothe
As a trained bookbinder and paper conservator, Michael Rothe ran his studio, Michael Rothe GmbH, specializing in the restoration of prints, photographs, and written documents from 1992 to 2023. He handed over his studio to a successor and continues to run his publishing house, through which he publishes artist’s books and print editions. Since 2017, he has been engaged in the research and production of brocade papers. Through his work, fascinating, lustrous brocade papers repeatedly found their way into his hands. Rothe researched these valuable papers. His exploration of this subject has resulted in a publication about a significant private collection as well as brocade papers produced using the original techniques.
In his presentation, Michael Rothe will discuss the historical methods of brocade paper production and showcase these magnificent prints in a small exhibition at Waldegg Castle.
Michael Rothe: freelance paper conservator & publisher, producer of brocade papers
www.rothebrokat.ch
Ilse Mühlbacher: freelance restorer, formerly of the Austrian National Library, specialist in brocade papers
www.buntpapiersammlungen.org
Free admission; reservations required
Event as part of the Solothurn Baroque Days
Reservations on the Solothurn Baroque Days website
Note: This text was translated by machine translation software and not by a human translator. It may contain translation errors.
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