Hahnemühle
 | |
| Company type | GmbH |
|---|---|
| Industry | paper |
| Founded | 1584 |
| Headquarters | Dassel |
Key people |
|
| appr. 30 Million. EUR (2013) | |
Number of employees | 180 |
Hahnemühle FineArt, Inc. is a paper manufacturing company in the Relliehausen district of Dassel, Germany. It is the world's leading producer of coated papers for inkjet printing. Other products include artist papers for traditional painting and printing techniques and filter paper for industry and research.
History
The company traces its origins to the construction of a paper mill by Merton Speiss on February 27, 1584 in Relliehausen at the source of a river in the Solling (a range of hills). The filtration effect from the Solling's sandstone had a softening effect on the pure spring water leading to paper of exceptional quality. This is but one of many such paper mills known to have existed in the vicinity of Dassel between the Weser and the Leine rivers, but it is the only one to have survived over the centuries.
On August 30, 1769, the descendants of the Spiess family sold the mill to Peter Johann Jacob Heinrich Andrae from Osterode for 4,500 Reichsthaler. Andrae suffered an early death, and the mill passed to his son. On August 13, 1884 Oskar Andrae sold the firm to H. J. Heinemann of Hannover who immediately began the construction of a new production facility. Unforeseen difficulties and costs forced Heinemann to give up the factory, and it was sold in 1886 to Carl Hahne who renamed the mill into “Büttenpapierfabrik Hahnemühle”. In 1902 Hahnemühle was converted into a limited company (GmbH) and merged with Schleicher & Schuell, a company from Düren. In 2004 Hahnmühle was demerged from Schleicher & Schuell and operates independently since then.
During the Second World War, the company created paper for the SS-Reichssicherheitshauptamt's efforts to produce counterfeit British banknotes as part of Operation Bernhard.
Today, the firm employs approximately 180 employees worldwide in the production of paper for painters, graphic artists, illustrators, bookbinders, photographers and printmaker as well as for the production of specialty papers in industrial applications (such as filter membranes for chemical and biological analysis). The paper factory is especially known for its high quality artist papers for painting and printmaking.
Hahnemühle is the inventor of Fine Art InkJet Paper with a special ink-receiving layer surface treatment suitable for today's UV inkjet printers. This is particularly suitable for high-quality photography, computer art, and painting and photo reproductions.
Bibliography
- Wolfgang Hein / Wilhelm Willemer: Neutral geleimte Papiere für wertvolle Objekte. In: Dauerhaftigkeit von Papier: Vorträge des 4. Internationalen graphischen Restauratorentages, veranstaltet von der Internationalen Arbeitsgemeinschaft der Archiv-, Bibliotheks- und Graphikrestauratoren (IADA)in Zusammenarbeit mit der Niedersächsischen Staats-und Universitätsbibliothek Göttingen und dem Niedersächsischen Staatsarchiv Bückeburg 1979, Klostermann, Frankfurt/Main 1980.
- E. Tacke: Urkundliche Beiträge zur Geschichte der Papiermühle Relliehausen während der Zeit der Papiermacherfamilie Spieß 1584-1789. In: Jahresbericht des Vereins für Geschichte und Altertümer der Stadt Einbeck und Umgebung 21 (1953/54), pp. 48–56
- 425 Jahre Hahnemühle 1584-2009