Bibliothèque des Merveilles: Les Couleurs

Hardcover 12mo, [6], 273, [3] p.; with 36 engravings and 18 color plates. Handsomely bound in red leather-backed pebbled boards with five raised bands and gilt-stamped compartments, ribbon place marker. Near Fine with a touch of rubbing to extremities and age toning; plates are printed on neutral-toned paper that allows the white ink used on color plates to show. Signature and bookseller's pencil notation to front blanks, else unmarked.

The most comprehensive treatise on the science of color by Guignet, a chemist and student of Michel Eugène Chevreul. His work was heavily influential in the industrial applications of color, especially dyeing. He patented the process for producing synthetic viridian, which replaced the toxic pigment Emerald Green (which itself had replaced the arsenic-laced Scheele's Green earlier in the 19th century). The color "Viridian Hue" is still sold as "Vert de Guignet" by paint manufacturers today. The book was dedicated to Chevreul, who died the year of its publication--also the year of the definitive and most extensively color-illustrated edition of Chevreul's own Principles of Harmony and Contrast of Colors... which reflected advances in the quality of color reproduction in technical works on colorimetry.

Guignet's book includes harmony and contrast, as well as chapters on each color, and the application of color in decorative arts, dyeing, and even tattoos. Extensively illustrated with 36 very attractive engravings, many related to the scientific and material aspects of color composition. Complete with 18 color plates which include spectral charts, color block juxtapositions, and decorative applications. A choice copy of the uncommon work which was never translated into English.