This 17th-century hand-painted art book bears an uncanny resemblance to the Pantone system
May06
Once upon a time—even before there existed a system called Pantone—artists were obsessed with categorizing color. So much so that in 1692, one artist named A. Boogert—about whom not much seems to be known—undertook the task of writing a book on how to mix watercolors. Written in Dutch, the book now lives at Bibliothèque Méjanes in Aix-en-Provence, France. Listed under the title, Traité des couleurs servant à la peinture à l’eau, the book runs some 800 handwritten and painted pages containing every available watercolor pigment and combination, at three dilution levels. The book’s record contains additional tidbits suggesting some relationship with the textile trade and…
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