Culture
Words by Michel Wlassikoff
G. Peignot & Fils’ “Della Robbia”
Della Robbia combined an innovation in its production process, and a commercially interesting addition to Peignot foundry’s existing catalog.
Della Robbia combined an innovation in its production process, and a commercially interesting addition to Peignot foundry’s existing catalog.
The origin of Della Robbia is to be found in the work of Thomas Maitland Cleland, who was inspired by the inscriptions of the Renaissance artist Luca Della Robbia to draw a humanistic character, around 1902. Morris Fuller Benton complements it for the American Types Founders (ATF) in 1913. George Peignot was interested in it because its original uppercase allowed him to implement and disseminate a casting process without slopes and to make the accents of the uppercase independent. So that “we can use accented sorts as silent letters at will”. Another reason for Peignot’s enthusiasm for this typeface is that its lowercase letters have a lot in common with Grasset, published ten years earlier by the foundry. “The use of Della Robbia will spread quickly both for jobbing works and for the variety of luxury works”, as one specimen indicates, and will be able to invigorate Grasset as much as the Grasset ornaments are prescribed to accompany it. This also underlines Peignot’s taste for excellent typography and his rejection of mechanical composition, which he believes can only produce ordinary typography.
Document: Le Della Robbia. Romain nouveau pour titres et labeurs. De la fonderie G. Peignot & Fils, circa 1910.
École Estienne library
