Colour quality and production: Testing colour in eighteenth-century France

Journal of Design History

Volumn 14, Issue 2, 2001, Pages 91-103

  Lowengard, Sarah ^a  

^a NONE

Author keywords

Colour; Design industry; Dyeing; Eighteenth century France; Production; Quality standards

Indexed keywords

EID: 2142782957     PISSN: 09524649     EISSN: 17417279     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1093/jdh/14.2.91     Document Type: Review

References (46)

1. P. Shaw, 'Lecture XIV. Containing attempts to illustrate and improve the business of colours, dyes and stains', Chemical Lectures, London, 1734, p. 165. Peter Shaw (1694-1763) was a physician, the editor of scientific writers, and an itinerant lecturer on scientific subjects.
2. R. Waller, 'A catalogue of Simple and Mixt colours with a Specimen of each Colour prefixt to its Properties', Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London, XVI, 1686-7, pp. 24-32. Waller was an early member of the Royal Society, and contributed articles on varied topics throughout his life.
3. E. A. Allen, 'Business mentality and technology transfer in eighteenth-century France: the Calandre Anglaise at Nimes, 1752-1792', History and Technology, vol. 8, 1990, pp. 9-23;
4. J. Jacqué (ed.), Andrinople, Le Rouge Magnifique, Musée d'Impression sur Étoffes, 1995;
5. J. K. J. Thomson, Clermont-de-Lodève 1633-1789: Fluctuations in the Prosperity of a Languedocian Cloth-Making Town, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 1982.
6. C. F. Du Fay, 'Observations physiques sur le meslange de quelques couleurs dans la teinture', Histoire et Mémoires de l'Académie Royale des Sciences, 1737, Imprimerie Royale, Paris, 1740, p. 253. Du Fay (1698-1739), a member of the Académie Royale des Sciences, was better known as a physicist. He studied dyes and dye chemistry as part of an effort to reorganize the regulations of the 1660s.
7. M. Bencard, 'The Boucher Tapestry at Rosenborg Castle', Caisse Nationale des Monuments Historiques et des Sites, Colloque, Château de Chambord, 19-20 October 1996; I. Bristow, Architectural Colour in British Interiors, 1615-1840, Yale University Press, New Haven, 1996;
8. I. Bristow, 'Ready-mixed paint in the eighteenth century', The Architectural Review, vol. 161, 1977, pp. 246-8;
9. R. W. Moss (ed.), Paint in America, Washington, DC, National Trust for Historic Preservation, 1994.
10. 12 1334A. Holker (1719-86) was a Jacobite from the Manchester region who became Inspecteur des Manufactures for the Rouen region of France in 1754.
11. 121329.
12. 12 80.
13. Abbé Mazéas, 'Recherches sur la cause physique de l'adhérence de la couleur rouge aux toiles peintes'. Mémoires de Mathématique et de Physique, vol. 4, 1763, pp. 1-32. Mazéas, a savant étranger from eastern France, was a close friend of several academicians, and presented several papers at the Académie Royale des Sciences through them.
14. See, for example, the instructions to make ultramarine included in R. Dossie, Handmaid to the Arts, vol. 1, London, 1758, pp. 71-5.
15. J. F. Watin, Etat et Detail des Principales Marchandises et Autres Objets Relatives aux Trois Arts, Quillau, Paris, n.d. (1775).
16. 1 2048.
17. Boileau to P.-J. Macquer, 18 August 1769, Bibliothèque Nationale, Département des Manuscrits, Fr. 9135, no. 89; A. Lajoix, 'Alexandre Brongniart et la quête des moyens de réproduction en couleurs', Sèvres, no. 2, 1993, pp. 64-73.
18. Statuts, Ordonnances et Reglemens ... par les Marchands Maîtres Teinturiers en Grand et Bon Teint, Imprimerie de F. Muguet, Paris, 1670.
19. C. Obrien, 'On the application of colour in printing operations', The British Manufacturer's Companion and Callico Printers Assistant, London: for the Author, 1789, n.p.
20. 'Sur le mélange de quelques couleurs dans la teinture', Histoire et Mémoires de l'Académie Royale des Sciences, Année 1737, Paris, 1740, p. 59.
21. 'Jean-Michel Haussmann', Biographie Universelle (Michaud) Ancienne & Moderne, vol. 18, chez Mme. C. Desplaces & chez M. Michaud, Paris, 1857.
22. Haussmann (1749-1836) describes his experiments and exasperations in 'Observations de M. Haussmann sur rouge d'Andrinople', in Annales de Chimie et de Physique, vol. 12, 1792, pp. 196-219, 250-72.
23. J. Hellot, L'Art de Teinture des Laines et des Étoffes des Laines, Imprimerie Royale, Paris, 1750, p. 277. Hellot (1685-1766) succeeded Du Fay as principal chemist at the Académie Royale des Sciences.
24. 12 1330;
25. Mémoire Lu par Hellot É́crit par Sieurs Gly et D'Heure Concernant son Bleu de Prusse, 6 and 9 February 1765, Archives de l'Académie Royale des Sciences, pochette.
26. 12 1473 2.
27. 12047.
28. 12 2259. Macquer followed Hellot as the principal chemist at the Académie Royale des Sciences, and continued his research at both Gobelins and Sèvres.
29. J. Hellot, 'Instructions sur le débouilli des laines & étoffes de laine', L'Art de la Teinture des Laines, pp. 617-31.
30. 12 2259.
31. 12 2259.
32. 1 1916 no. 217.
33. 12 1497A/29;
34. 12 1489B 15.
35. J. Hellot, Compilation de Tous les Procédés de la Manufacture Royale de Vincennes, Ordonnée par le Roi, Bibliothèque de Sèvres, n.d. (1753-4), Y.49.
36. 12 1331 (28 September 1784). No personal information about Pont is included, not even the source of his interest in the subject.
37. 122259.
38. Berthollet (1748-1822), like Macquer and Hellot before him, was an academic chemist responsible for chemical operations at both the Gobelins tapestry works and Sèvres ceramic manufacture. He is the practical chemist most closely linked to the introduction of 'new' chemistry into factory practice in the latter part of the eighteenth century.
39. 12 2424.
40. Gallnuts are tannin-rich excrescences, found on certain species of oak trees, traditionally used to dye black colours.
41. 121330.
42. Rapport du Vandermonde et Baumé, 11 January 1786, AdS pochette.
43. Académie Royale des Sciences, Procès-verbaux, tome 106, 17 March 1787, f. 92-124.
44. This was W. Lewis, Commercium Philosophico-Technicum, or the Philosophical Commerce of Arts, H. Baldwin, London, 1763.
45. Académie Royale des Sciences, Procès-verbaux, op. cit., f. 103.
46. C. C. Gillispie has a very different interpretation of this episode in Science and Polity at the End of the Old Regime in France, Princeton University Press, Princeton, 1980.