The dyer's handbook : memoirs on dyeing by a French gentleman-clothier in the age of enlightenment translated and contextualised / edited by Dominique Cardon.

Enhanced descriptions from Syndetics:

Persian blue, pomegranate flower, spiny lobster, wine soup, pale flesh, dove breast, golden wax, grass green, green sand, rotten olive, modest plum, agate, rich French gray, gunpowder of the English........just some of the color names of old fabric to fire the imagination. Memoirs on Dyeing concerns a unique manuscript from the eighteenth century; a dyers memoirs from Languedoc, containing recipes for dyes with corresponding color samples. It is an exceptional document, hugely rare and of great significance not only to textile historians but dyers and colorists today, as thanks to the information in the manuscript the colors can be reproduced exactly, with the same ingredients, or reproduced using modern techniques by matching the color samples. To the English translation of the text, together with facsimile pages reproduced in color from the original manuscript, are added essays meant to situate it in its historical, economic and technological contexts. For those historians who have long been fascinated by the change in scale and the amount of innovation that occurred in woollen cloth production in Europe during the 17th and 18th centuries, the Memoirs on Dyeing bring firsthand insight into the daily preoccupations and tasks of a key actor in the success story of the Languedocian broadcloth production specially devised for export to the Levant. Even non-specialists may be interested in understanding the clever management and technical organization that made it possible for the author to produce, dye, finish, pack and export up to 1,375 pieces of superfine broadcloth per year, representing nearly 51 km of cloth.

Reviews provided by Syndetics

CHOICE Review

A handwritten manuscript from the 18th century on the art of woolen dyeing had been discovered. It exhaustively explained, technologically and chemically, how various dyes/colorants were made and used during the time, and included 177 dyed samples. The original text appeared in French and was published in 2013. In this translated English volume, editor Cardon presents each page of the manuscript, usually in color, documenting the art of dyeing in France. Also included are essays that comment on the financial, economic, and technological significance of the presented information. With so much here, obviously there are multiple ways to offer the information. This reviewer would have appreciated facing English translations so that the reader does not have to flip back and forth between the original page and the English version of the text. This is minor. The book is beautifully created, contains information that will be useful to researchers for years to come, and is clearly a work of love on the part of Cardon. Through this book, readers will discover much about coloring fabrics in the 18th century. A smart purchase! Summing Up: Recommended. All readers. --John Allison, The College of New Jersey