hand coloring

[David A. Brewer]

I've been intermittently working on a rather sprawling essay on the
early 1820s craze for Pierce Egan's _Life in London_ and have noticed
some intriguing variants in terms of how the Cruikshank plates were
colored. All of the plates are hand-colored aquatints and so
necessarily will vary some from copy to copy. But given the
sporting/slumming thrust of the text, I'm struck by how much the
amount of blood in various kinds of fights (both animal and human)
seems to vary in the copies I've seen, as does the amount of cleavage
(or even bare breasts). Do any of you know whether such variations
in the hand-coloring would have been a deliberate sales tool (e.g.,
we keep a few extra-risque or bloody copies under the counter for the
knowing gent who desires such a thing)? Or could purchasers have
bespoken a copy colored to their particular desires?

With thanks for any suggestions,

David Brewer

[susan pickford]

What an interesting question. I'm far from an expert in this field but I
have read that Rudolph Ackermann principally employed women and children to
hand-colour the aquatints for Dr Syntax, using a kind of proto-Fordist
factory line system. I would guess this would make it unlikely for variants
in colour to be anything more than chance. Ackermann also employed French
emigres who might have been persuaded to add a little extra spice to
individual plates, I suppose. On balance, though, I think the
proto-industrial setup would make special treatment of individual plates at
best a rare exception. Although having said that, Thierry Groensteen has
noted the existence of a few copies of Gustave Dore's Histoire de la Sainte
Russie (1854) which have red spatters of blood added by hand, so it did
happen.
Best wishes,
Susan Pickford
U. Toulouse II le Mirail

[Jill Shefrin]

The colouring of the same illustrations often varies from copy to copy of
early and mid-nineteenth-century children's books and printed games. (This
is distinct from copies coloured by child owners.)

Jill Shefrin
Research Associate in Arts
Trinity College
University of Toronto

-----Original Message-----
From: SHARP-L Society for the History of Authorship, Reading & Publishing
[mailto:SHARP-***@LISTSERV.INDIANA.EDU] On Behalf Of susan pickford
Sent: Thursday, October 05, 2006 4:49 PM
To: SHARP-***@LISTSERV.INDIANA.EDU
Subject: Re: hand coloring

What an interesting question. I'm far from an expert in this field but I
have read that Rudolph Ackermann principally employed women and children to
hand-colour the aquatints for Dr Syntax, using a kind of proto-Fordist
factory line system. I would guess this would make it unlikely for variants
in colour to be anything more than chance. Ackermann also employed French
emigres who might have been persuaded to add a little extra spice to
individual plates, I suppose. On balance, though, I think the
proto-industrial setup would make special treatment of individual plates at
best a rare exception. Although having said that, Thierry Groensteen has
noted the existence of a few copies of Gustave Dore's Histoire de la Sainte
Russie (1854) which have red spatters of blood added by hand, so it did
happen.
Best wishes,
Susan Pickford
U. Toulouse II le Mirail

[David A. Brewer]

Many thanks for all the fascinating replies to my query about
hand-coloring. None of them answer my question per se, though I
suspect Susan Pickford is right that the hand-coloring for _Life in
London_ was largely done by women and children on (rather small)
assembly-line basis, which probably means that customers were not
bespeaking the variations in coloring. Whether the publishers,
Sherwood Neely & Jones, arranged for certain copies to play up the
cleavage or blood remains an open question. Certainly these
augmentations/variations do not show up randomly (e.g., it's not just
any woman who is bare breasted; it's a courtesan whose partner's pose
recalls the third plate of _The Rake's Progress_; just as it's only
during the fisticuffs and bloodsport that we get the extra flecks of
red on the injured creatures).

With thanks (and an encouragement to keep the discussion going),

David Brewer

[Bill Bell]

The findings of Ross Alloway, in the forthcoming Edinburgh History of
the Book in Scotland, volume 3: 1800-1880, demonstrates that it was not
only the London trade that employed women in hand colouring. Alloway,
in his excellent analysis of the Census records, demonstrates that, by
the mid-nineteenth century, colouring was undertaken exclusively by
females in Scotland.

BB
--
Dr. Bill Bell
Centre for the History of the Book
& School of Literatures, Languages, and Cultures
The University of Edinburgh
18 Buccleuch Place
Edinburgh
EH8 9LN
[phone]
http://www.arts.ed.ac.uk/chb

[robert dawson]

and emigreEs colored botanical plates for a song
during the revolution.
--bob dawson

Post by Bill Bell
The findings of Ross Alloway, in the forthcoming
Edinburgh History of
the Book in Scotland, volume 3: 1800-1880,
demonstrates that it was not
only the London trade that employed women in hand
colouring. Alloway,
in his excellent analysis of the Census records,
demonstrates that, by
the mid-nineteenth century, colouring was undertaken
exclusively by
females in Scotland.

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[Shevlin, Eleanor]

In the 1767 novel, The Adventures of an Author, the woman with whom the author is living contributes to the couple's income by hand-coloring prints.

Eleanor F. Shevlin, Ph.D.
Dept. of English
West Chester University
610-738-0499
***@wcupa.edu

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