[Rarebooks] FS: 1838 Color Theory of Art & Painting - Color Lithographs

[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 in 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 Hullmandell 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 a nice copy.  $125


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