Printing Colour 1700–1830: Histories, Techniques, Functions, and Receptions. Edited by Margaret MorganGrasselli and ElizabethSavage. Oxford: Oxford University Press. 2024. 448 p. £150 (hb). ISBN 978‐0‐1972‐6753‐0.
Year: 2025
Type: book-review
Abstract: Print studies have flourished over the past fifteen years, with curators, book and art historians, and conservators increasingly turning their attention to prints and, crucially, the materiality of prints.Two monumental works have propelled scholarship: Ad Stijnman's Engraving and Etching 1400-2000: A History of the Development of Manual Intaglio Printmaking Processes (2012) and Antony Griffiths's The Print Before Photography: An Introduction to European Printmaking, 1550-1820 (2016).Although they have been staple references to anyone working in print history, they are not exhaustive.One of the many gaps in our knowledge of printmaking and the consumption of prints is the use of colour.Printing Colour 1700-1830: Histories, Techniques, Functions, and Receptions, edited by Margaret Grasselli and Elizabeth Savage, masterfully fills with gap with a collection of thoroughly researched essays that satisfy readers from many fields.The book begins with a quotation from Printing Colour 1400-1700 (2015), edited by Savage and Stijnman, indicating its role as a trailblazing work of scholarship enabling a deeper understanding of colour printing.Grasselli and Savage's new volume is a highly anticipated continuation of this work.Printing Colour 1700-1830 aims to break down the barriers between art, print history, and cognate fields such as decorative arts, material studies, and heritage science.Covering the period from around 1700 (when intaglio became the primary technique for colour printing) until 1830 (when chromolithography took over), the book broadens the definition of 'colour print' by considering histories, materials, and experiences beyond the central focus on London and Paris typically found in book and print history research.Described as 'the first handbook of early modern printmaking from the invention of full-colour printing until chromolithography' (p. 2), it examines a diverse range of objects, from colour-printed text to satin muffs.Printing Colour 1700-1830 brings together contributions by curators, conservators, librarians, heritage scientists, and other experts from across the globe, making it accessible to anyone interested in colour printing.The substantial volume is divided into seven parts containing twenty-eight chapters.The first five sections group chapters by technique and chronological order.The sixth part focuses on colour-printed functional goods, while the seventh part discusses later experiments in colour printing.The introduction effectively illustrates the background and scope of the volume, defines the concept of 'colour print', and highlights areas for future research, such as colour printing outside of Europe and beyond 1830.Additionally, it establishes parameters for understanding and describing colour prints, distinguishing between 'colour prints' for those that were always intended to be printed in colour by the artist and 'inked in' when the colour was a printing choice (pp.7-10).More importantly, such guidelines serve as a model for cataloguing colour prints, which are often difficult to describe without the right expertise.The first section of the book, 'Materials and Techniques: Printing Colours in 18th-Century Europe', explores the technical aspects of colour printing, such as matrices, tools, presses, and inks for intaglio, relief, and planographic prints in colour.These opening chapters are especially beneficial for readers without previous knowledge of printing and provide a solid foundation for the entire volume.The second section, 'Relief Techniques: Letterpress, and Colour Woodcut', offers five chapters that discuss some of the most understudied methods for printing colour letterpress and Elisha Kirkall's unique technique that combines intaglio and relief printing.The third part, 'Colour mezzotint and trichromatic printing', studies Jacob Cristoff Le Blon's invention of trichromatic printinga precursor of the modern-day CYMK systemand the role of colour mezzotints in shaping anatomical illustrations.It includes discussion of groundbreaking analyses
Author: Chiara Betti
Institution: University of Oxford
Language: English
Subfield: History
Field: Arts and Humanities
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: bronze
OpenAlex ID: W4410186415