[Rarebooks] FS: 1838 Guide to Color - Very Early Color Printing

[Joslin Hall Rare Books]

"Colour, as a Means of Art, being an adaptation of the experience of
professors to the practice of amateurs"

By Frank Howard Published in London by Joseph Thomas: 1838.

The first edition of this interesting book by the author of several art
manuals, including a companion volume on sketching. In this volume Howard
surveys the coloring used by various schools and masters of art, including
Titian, Rubens and Turner, and instructs the amateur on how to achieve
like effects and gain a knowledge of coloring. The book is perhaps most
notable today as a very early example of color lithographic printing, with
18 color plates produced by Charles Joseph Hullmandell. A Paris-trained
painter, Hullmandell was introduced to lithography by the pioneering
lithographer Alois Senefelder during a trip to Munich in 1817. Soon he had
developed his own lithographic press and was experimenting with new
techniques, including ways of printing in colors.

Howard notes in his preface, “For the method in which the plates of the
present work have been executed, I am indebted to a recent improvement in
Lithography, made by Mr. Hullmandell. It is capable of producing more
nearly the effects of painting than any other style of engraving; but from
these plates, professing only to represent masses of Colour and general
tone, and being the first that have been attempted in this particular
application, they are not calculated to display Mr. Hullmandell’s
improvement to advantage”.

Despite Howard’s protestations, the plates, which were achieved by the
printing of three or four overlays of color, have an undeniable charm and
are quite effective at getting across the points Howard is making in the
text. Not everyone found Hullmandel as pleasant to work with as Howard
apparently did- in a letter to J.D. Hooker on March 11, 1844, Charles
Darwin noted that “I believe Hullmandell is a good litho. printer, but I
found him rather troublesome.”

I suppose the price of art must always be paid, and geniuses are often
cranky.

Hardcover. 5”x8”, ii, 106 pages, plus 18 lithographed, colored plates.
Publisher’s brown cloth with gilt title; rebacked and with a new cloth
spine; covers with some soil and wear, contents with minor soil and some
scattered light spotting, but overall in nice condition.  $400.00

Some pictures->

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<http://www.joslinhall.com/images09/th-09457-cover.jpg>

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