Credit: ©The Royal Society
    Image number: RS.20955

    Pigment printing

    Date
    1874
    Creator
    Unknown, Artist
    After
    William Crookes (1832 - 1919, British) , Knight Chemist, Chemist
    Library reference
    34611
    Material
    Technique
    Dimensions
    height (page): 210mm
    width (page): 130mm
    Subject
    Description
    Floral calico plates demonstrating the pigment style of printing in combination with the madder and steaming style, using ultramarine, a red extracted from madder, and a steam-chrome black, green and orange [upper plate, titled ‘ULTRAMARINE AND MADDER EXTRACT‘], and using a pigment, carbonaceous grey, with chrome-black, green and yellow, and red produced from the extract of madder [lower, titled ‘CARBONACEOUS GREY, WITH CHROME BLACK, CHROME GREEN, CHROME YELLOW AND EXTRACT OF MADDER’].

    Written of pigment printing: ‘This style has in the last few years undergone a great development. When first introduced, pigment colours had a heavy, opaque, dull effect, and were besides, very liable to crack and peel off. These drawbacks have now been overcome, and designs are now executed in this style which have all the lightness and brilliance of colours formed on or within the fibre’.

    Plates on page 643 of William Crookes’ A practical handbook of dyeing and calico-printing (London, 1874), which provided information about the chemistry and process of dyeing, specifically calico-dyeing.

    Sir William Crookes (1832-1919), Knight chemist, was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society in 1863 and served as its President between 1913-1915.
    Powered by CollectionsIndex+/CollectionsOnline