Printing Colour 1700 - 1830

Abstract This book offers the first handbook of early modern colour printmaking in Europe in the late hand-press period, 1700–1830. It begins with the invention of full-colour printing around 1700, follows the transformations and mechanisation of printing processes following the Industrial Revolution, and concludes with the spread of chromolithography around 1830. For the first time, it presents new information about influential fine art prints and books alongside far more common colour-printed material: letterpress, book illustrations, and the products of cognate trades and industries, including vibrant textiles, wallpapers, and transfer-printed porcelain and enamels. It establishes that the history of colour printing diverges significantly from the mainstream history of printing, mainly in black, and creates an interdisciplinary paradigm for the history of graphic art that focuses on materiality and production rather than artistic style. Also, rather than considering only the London-Paris axis, or even western Europe, it reveals significant episodes and centres of colour printing in, for example, provincial towns, Scandinavia, and Russia, and markets for this work in areas then under colonial control, including India. The twenty-eight contributions represent the state of research in this still-emerging field. They offer art historical, bibliographical, technical, and scientific contexts for understanding the vast quantity of individual colour print projects—and colour-printed objects—were produced, sold, and used, including the colour inks themselves and the printing processes that enabled their production. Taken together, they demonstrate that colour prints were not rare outliers of fine art and elite scientific imagery, but essential components of many book, print and visual cultures that were in or connected to Europe in the long 18th century.