Laid paper has been the quintessential Western paper since papermaking first arrived in Italy in the thirteenth century: the sheet is formed on a mould made of brass wires stretched across a frame — the chain lines (vergeures) — supported by wooden ribs, the chain bars (pontuseaux), and the pulp, thinner above the wires, reveals their pattern by transparency. Until the eighteenth century, all printing paper was laid, made from linen or hemp rag; the invention of wove paper by Baskerville and Whatman around 1750, followed by the continuous papermaking machine in the nineteenth century, relegated it to luxury uses. There it has remained: the "laid papers" of modern publishers — Holland laid, Arches laid, Lafuma pure-rag laid, Montval laid — are the papers of numbered limited editions.
For the bookseller, the mention "on laid paper" in a limitation statement designates a paper of superior quality to ordinary stock, generally the last rank of fine papers after Japan, China and Holland. For the antiquarian book, examining the laid paper is a tool of identification: the spacing of the chain bars, the fineness of the chain lines and the watermark make it possible to date a paper, to localise a mill and, at times, to distinguish a forgery from a first edition printed on a different paper.
Laid paper is often confused with wove paper, whose surface is smooth, and old hand-made laid paper with modern machine-made laid paper, which imitates the wire pattern by means of a dandy roll. An ordinary-issue "laid" paper is not a large-paper copy; only the limitation statement makes it a deluxe copy. Finally, a laid paper showing neither regular chain bars nor a watermark consistent with the stated date deserves closer examination.
