Paper was first made in China around 1000 AD, but inventor T'sai Lun's process was kept secret until the Battle of Samakund, almost 700 years later.

Arab troops prised the secret from Chinese prisoners of war, and the first factory was set up in Bagdad in 703 AD, using Chinese labour.

From there, paper-making travelled across the Arab world to Damascus, then to Egypt, and on into the southern Mediterranean.

It took 600 years to reach England where Caxton used it on the first printing press.

During the reign of Elizabeth 1 in the 16th century, paper mills had to be licensed by the monarch, and needed a royal warrant to collect rags from their own area.

They thought the plague was carried on dirty rags, and imposed restrictions to prevent the disease spreading outside the licensed area.

The 18th Century heralded important changes. Montgolfier, famous for the first hot air balloon made of paper, invented a semi-automatic papermaking machine.

Four years later, the two Fourdrinier brothers and tin can inventor Bryan Donkin used his basic design to produce the first continuous paper-making machine.

The Fourdrinier machine, used for ordinary commercial paper, remains basically the same today.

A mixture of fibre and water flows onto a moving horizontal wire mesh screen. The water drains through, leaving a fibrous matt on top of the mesh.

Although it is the most popular machine for everyday paper-making, it is unable to produce the many specialist papers required by artists.

Artist's paper is usually made on a cylinder mould machine. Instead of the horizontally moving wire, it has a one-metre diameter cylinder, covered in a fine mesh.

This revolves slowly in a vat of dilute fibres, which are picked up on the cylinder screen as the water drains away, producing a continuous sheet of paper with two deckle edges.

The paper is then passed between a roller and a fabric felt which results in its particular surface characteristic.