Brass rubbing

Brass rubbing of a memorial showing the alliance of the Lindley and Palmes family, Otley Church, Yorkshire

Rubbing of the Thorntons' brass, Newcastle Cathedral (Newcastle upon Tyne)

Brass rubbing was originally a largely British enthusiasm for reproducing onto paper monumental brasses – commemorative brass plaques found in churches, usually originally on the floor, from between the 13th and 16th 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 just desires to use rubbing to grab a random texture.

Brass rubbings are created by laying a sheet of paper on top of a brass (actually called "latten" - an alloy of brass and nickel) and rubbing the paper with graphite, wax, or chalk, a process similar to rubbing a pencil over a piece of paper placed on top of a coin. In the "old days" rubbings were most commonly made using the equivalent of what we would call "butcher's paper" [a 22–30-inch-wide (560–760 mm) roll of whitish paper] laid 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 silver or gold (and other colours).

Often now you can no longer rub original brasses since they were being worn away by the rubbing process and the lack of care of some individuals. Brass rubbing centres had already appeared around the UK and now they became the prime source for rubbings. Replicas are often not the same scale as the original.

See also

• Bronze and brass ornamental work

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