What's It Wednesday -To Pounce or Not to Pounce
We aren’t talking about wild animals…
This is a pounce pot. It is similar in style to a salt-shaker. However, it would have been found on a desk, not a dining table. In the 18th and 19th centuries, pots like this one contained pounce – a fine powder used to smooth writing paper so that it would accept ink without smearing.
Early writing paper was not “sized” as it is today. It was either parchment, made from sheep skin, or handmade from rags or wood. It was rough, porous, and absorbed ink. Without preparing the paper, writing with a quill was a messy task. Writing would feather, blotch and smear. So, a writer would first pounce the paper.
The word pounce has quite a few meanings. According to Merriam-Webster, this use comes from the French word ponce from the Latin pūmex, meaning pumice stone. Merriam-Webster indicates that the first use of the word in reference to paper and writing was in 1705.
The task of pouncing was relatively simple. The powder was shaken lightly over a sheet of paper. Then, the powder was rubbed gently over the paper, usually using a muslin cloth, to smooth the paper lightly. Next, the sheet was lightly shaken to remove the excess powder.
By the late 1850s, due to industrial paper manufacturing, paper preparation gave way to a second pounce technique. The fine powder was lightly sprinkled over a newly written page to absorb any ink which was not yet dry. After a few minutes, the powder would absorb any excess ink. The powder could then be shaken off. In the late 19th century, pounce or sand shakers had a dished or concave top, so that excess powder could be shaken back into the container and reused.
Pounce powder can be made from many different materials. Pumice, gum-sandarac rosin, fine sand, sandstone, talc, and the crushed bones of cuttlefish were commonly used. Gum sandarac is the sap from a cypress-like evergreen tree, the tetraclinis articulata, found in north-west Africa. It is thought that the name sand pots comes from the shortening of sandarac. The crystals of sap, called tears, harden in air. They are ground into a fine yellow powder to form the pounce.
Cuttlefish bone or cuttlebone is just that - bone from the cuttlefish, a shallow-water, bottom feeder marine animal within the squid, octopus (Cephalopods) family. Cuttlebone is hard and brittle. It also is very absorbent and so was used in pounce to dry the ink.
As happens, techniques change and new inventions replace old methods. Blotting paper, or blotters, became more popular and began to replace pounce. By the mid-19th century, steel nib pens replaced quill, and sizing of paper was an accepted part of the paper industry. Pounce was no longer used. Now pounce pots are seen mainly in museum collections.
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Website Resources
https://www.historiclondontown.org/post/pounce
https://regencyredingote.wordpress.com/2018/02/16/of-inkstands-and-standishes/
https://www.patricialovett.com/sand-sanders-and-writing/
http://openinkstandblog.com/2013/12/18/using-pounce-and-gum-sandarac-to-diminish-bleeding/
https://hob.gseis.ucla.edu/HoB_Scribes_Exhibit/HoB_Scribes_Sander.html
Hey Marilyn, this brought back my days in art school. We used a pounce bag filled with charcoal powder to tap on a cartoon or drawing stencil to transfer the design on to wet plaster to do a fresco. We were replicating the same technique that Michelangelo used and my guess everyone else. Sometimes you see a pounce used in period docudramas.