Printing Colour 1700 - 1830

Dr Elizabeth Savage FSA FRHistS is Senior Lecturer in Book History and Communications, School of Advanced Study, and Head of Academic Research Engagement, Senate House Library, University of London. In 2020-22, she was an Honorary Fellow at Centre for the Study of the Book, Bodleian Libraries, Oxford University. In 2022-23, she was a Fellow at Linda Hall Library. Her research into pre-industrial European printing techniques, especially for colour, has won awards including the Schulman and Bullard Article Prize. Her latest book is Early Colour Printing: German Renaissance Woodcuts at the British Museum, and she co-edited Printing Colour 1400-1700. She regularly curates and contributes to exhibitions about print heritage, for example at the British Museum and Musée du Louvre. She teaches at London Rare Books School.Dr Margaret Morgan Grasselli worked for forty years at the National Gallery of Art in Washington, thirty as Curator of Old Master Drawings. Having retired in 2020, she then served as Visiting Lecturer in the department of History of Art and Architecture of the Faculty of Arts and Sciences at Harvard University (2020-2022) and Visiting Senior Scholar for Drawings at the Harvard Art Museums (2020-2023). An expert on French drawings, she is also an authority on French colour prints of the 18th century. She organised the 2003 exhibition at the National Gallery of Art, Colorful Impressions: The Printing Revolution in Eighteenth-Century France, and was the editor and primary author of the accompanying catalogue.

In addition to collating three hundred fifty beautiful high-resolution images, this book offers an exceptional overview of the practices, materials, and figures that contributed to bringing colour to European visual and textual culture in the long eighteenth century.

• IntroductionPart I: Materials and Techniques Printing Colour in 18th-Century EuropeTools, Machines, and Presswork for Printing Colour in 18th-Century EuropeColour Printing Inks and Colour Inking in 18th-Century EuropePart II Relief Techniques: Letterpress, and Colour WoodcutColour Letterpress in Europe in the Long 18th CenturyElisha Kirkall and his Proposals for Printing in Chiaroscuro, Natural Colours and Tints, 1720-1740Printing Chiaroscuro and Colour Woodcuts in Paris, Venice, and London c.1725-70Bringing Colour to Books and Objects with Decorated Paper in the Long 18th CenturyColour for Commerce: Letterpress-Printed Ephemera in Britain, 1700-1830Part III Mezzotint and Trichromatic PrintingThe Politics of Process Mezzotint: Jacob Christoff Le Blon's Reputation, 1700-89From Colour Theory to Colour Practice: Printmakers in Pursuit of the Ideal Pigments in 18th-Century EuropeColouring the Body: Printed Colour in Medical Treatises during the Long Eighteenth CenturyColour Printing in Late 18th-Century Italy: Édouard and Louis Dagoty, 1770-1800Part IV Chalk, Pastel and Watercolour Manner, and AquatintPrinted Paintings and Engraved Drawings: Technical Innovations in Colour Printing in 18th-Century FranceColoured Prints in Imitation of Old Master Drawings in 18th-Century Italy: Anton Maria Zanetti the Elder, Benigno Bossi, Francesco Rosaspina and their ContemporariesFrançois-Philippe Charpentier and the Development of Aquatint in France in the 1760sA Voyage pittoresque in Norway through Colour Prints, 1789-c.1815The Market for Colour Prints in Paris at the End of the 18th CenturyMultiple-Plate Colour Prints and the Problems of Variant Impressions, Missing Plates, and Disappearing InksPart V Stipple and a la PoupéeEnglish Colour-Printed Stipple Engravings, 1774-1800Between Painting and Graphic Arts: Colour Printmaking in Russia, 1750s-1800sAnne Allen, Jean Pillement, and the Development of à la poupée Printing in FranceThe Contribution of à la poupée-inked Colour Printing to Natural History Illustration in France, 1800-1870Part VI Consumer Goods and Expanding Markets for Colour PrintingAnatomy to Embroidery: Intaglio Colour-Printed Illustrations in European Books and Periodicals, 1700-1850Early Dye-Patterned Colour on Calico in Europe, 1600-1840Printed Wallpaper in England in the Long Eighteenth CenturyColour Printing on English Ceramics, 1751-70Part VII Technical Experimentation and IndustrialisationWilliam Blake's Colour Printing: Methods and MaterialsInnovation and Tradition in Early 19th-Century Colour PrintingThe Beginnings of Commercial Colour Printing in Europe, 1835-1840