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Colour Printing Inks and Colour Inking in 18th-Century Europe

Citation: Savage, Elizabeth (2024) Colour Printing Inks and Colour Inking in 18th-Century Europe. In: Printing Colour 1700-1830 Histories, Techniques, Functions, and Receptions. Proceedings of the British Academy, 263 . Oxford University Press, Oxford, pp. 52-72. ISBN 978-0-19-726753-0

Colour Printing Inks and Colour Inking in 18th-Century Europe, in Printing Colour 1700–1830, pp 52–72.pdf

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In many ways, the history of colour printing is the history of often overlooked and little understood materials: historical colour printing inks. While the history of printing has focused on stylistic trends or, to a lesser degree, the engineering of the printing press, printing inks were profoundly entwined with developments in tools, machines, and approaches, and allowed printing surfaces or matrices to be worked in new ways to create new styles. This introductory chapter offers an overview of the ways colour printing inks were prepared in the long 18th century, whether by craftswomen and men who combined ingredients to informal recipes or factory workers who formulated colour printing inks from standardised components, including synthetic colourants, using mechanised if not industrial means. It then describes common approaches to applying colour printing inks, for single-sheet artworks and book illustrations, as well as cognate, cross-fertilising trades including textile, pottery, and wallpaper.

Additional Information: The publication of this book was supported by the Marc Fitch Fund and Isobel Thornely Bequest. This is the Author Accepted Manuscript version of 'Colour Printing Inks and Colour Inking in 18th-Century Europe' by Elizabeth Savage. In: Printing Colour 1700-1830 Histories, Techniques, Functions, and Receptions. Proceedings of the British Academy, 263. Oxford University Press, Oxford, pp.52-72. Each author may upload the ‘author accepted manuscript’ version of their chapter in the Proceedings volume to institutional or centrally organised subject repositories where it may be made available under a Creative Commons Attribution-Non Commercial-No Derivatives 4.0 International Licence (CC BY-NC-ND), provided that (a) it is not made publicly available until 12 months after the publication in the Proceedings of the British Academy series, (b) the Proceedings is attributed as the original place of publication with the correct citation details given. The series is therefore compliant with open access requirements for work that has also been supported through UKRI.
Creators: Savage, Elizabeth (0000-0002-7274-2471) and
DOI: https://doi.org/10.5871/bacad/9780197267530.003.0003
Subjects: History
Keywords: Printing ink, Colour printing, Early modern recipes, Industrial Revolution, Ink formulation, Heritage science, Materiality, Eighteenth century
Divisions: School of Advanced Study: Central Offices
Dates:
  • 27 December 2024 (published)

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