wove paper (Q992)

Handmade papers created by dipping a rectangular mould with a woven wire screen into a vat of liquid paper pulp. When the water has drained from the pulp, the sheet of paper is couched onto a felt, before being pressed and then dried. The impression of the woven screen is usually only visible on thinner papers. Most mould-made and machine-made papers are made on a continuous woven web and can often be similar in appearance unless one or more of the deckle edges of a handmade sheet is visible. Wove paper is to be distinguished from 'laid paper', which is made on a laid screen, and did not come into regular use until late in the eighteenth century.