The art of painting in oil and in fresco: being a history of the various processes and materials employed, from its discovery, by Hubert and John van Eyck, to the present time

Abstract

First edition in English; originally published Paris, 1830; translated into English by W. B. Sarsfield Taylor. It was called by Faber Birren “perhaps the most important book on painting of the early 19th century...” (History of color in painting, p. 55). The subtitle states the work is “a history of the various processes and materials employed, from its discovery, by Hubert and Jan Van Eyck, to the present time...with original observations on the rise and progress of British Art, the French and English chromatic scales, and theories of colouring by W.B.S.T.” Chapter six deals with conservation and restoration and is given a good analysis in Ruhemann/Plesters, pp. 384-5. Noted also by Mayer in The Artist’s handbook: “one of the first of the carefully written books on methods and materials; an authentic account of the knowledge of the present day.” (p. 352). Also contains information on pigments; multiple references in R. D. Harley, Artist’s pigments. Birren Collection 455. (Charles Wood, Cat. 160)