Mosley suggests that it may have been created on commission by a specific client. Aside from its documented existence and survival, the reasons behind its creation are not clear, especially since no contemporary uses of it have been found. It appears sandwiched by larger and much more ornate typefaces, apparently not marketed with any prominence. The matrices survive in the collection of the Type Museum, London, with some replacement letters.Ĭaslons Egyptian typeface was shown in the foundrys specimen books, the earliest edition with a date dated 1816 although some possibly earlier.
It is somewhat "classical" in style, being capitals-only, formal in design and not particularly bold although still bolder than conventional body text fonts, appearing similar to Soanes lettering.
The "Egyptian" typeface was released by the Caslon type foundry of Salisbury Square, London, run by William Caslon IV. "Egyptian" is the only part of its name referring to its design: the first part of its name in specimen books, Two Lines English, is simply the standard name used at the time for its size, around 28 modern points. The term "Egyptian" has since become associated with slab-serif typefaces. The name "Egyptian" had become commonly used in England by 1816 to describe this style of lettering it may originate from the image of sans-serifs being historical in style, the Egyptomania of the period and the "blocky" nature of ancient Egyptian architecture. However, it was some decades before a printing typeface would be released in this style, now commonly used. Historian James Mosley, the leading expert on early sans-serifs, has suggested in his book The Nymph and The Grot that Soanes influence was crucial in spreading the idea of sans-serif letterforms around the end of the eighteenth century. Sans-serif lettering in block capitals had been developing in popularity over the past decades, initially due to interest in classical antiquity in which inscriptions often had minimal or no serifs, and come to be used by architect John Soane and copied by others, particularly in signpainting. The Two Lines English Egyptian typeface is a font created by the Caslon foundry of Salisbury Square, London around or probably slightly before 1816, that is the first general-purpose sans-serif typeface in the Latin alphabet known to have been created.
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