Beginning in the early 1800s with the invention of the Fourdrinier machine, paper was produced in long rolls and the deckle edge became mostly obsolete; although there was some deckle on the ends of the rolls, it was cut off, and the individual sheets cut out from the roll would have no deckle in any case.
42.
Many watercolor painters still stretch their papers, but because natural deckles are appreciated today for their decorative, handmade effect, the modern preference is to work on unstretched papers, either by using a heavier weight of paper, by allowing paper to dry out before it becomes too saturated, or by exploiting the artistic effects that cockling can produce.
43.
The paper edges were fixed with gummed tape, starch glue, or tacks, and the paper was left to dry . ( As paper dries it shrinks, producing a high tension across the paper surface; when painted on, this tension takes up the expansion produced by the paper cockling, so that the paper remains flat . ) When the painting was finished, the gummed or glued edge of the paper, including the deckle ( which was considered unsightly ) was trimmed away.
44.
The artworks were often erotic, For example, the 1896 " Elles " ( " Women " ) was a series of ten Toulouse-Lautrec lithographs and a frontispiece, which Pellet had printed on high quality wove paper, in a small edition of only 100; the paper was left deckle edged, and was specially watermarked " G . Pellet / T . Lautrec "; the women are mostly from Paris brothels, and they are shown relaxing, washing and dressing.
