Gaspard Grégoire. Théorie des Couleurs, appliquée à la pratique des arts industriels, contenant : des observations sur le système des trois couleurs primitives ; sur leur succession méthodique, sur les moyens d’accorder les couleurs entre elles pour produire l’harmonie dans les dessins et assortimens de tous genres, et sur une nouvelle méthode de noter les couleurs. Avec figures coloriées. Seconde édition augmentée de plusieurs nouvelles expériences. Paris, chez l’Auteur, et chez Bachelier, 1839. In-8°. iv, 20 pp. 3 hors-exte engraved watercolour plates. [Connected afterwards, by the same publishers, same date:] Expériences prismatiques à l’appui du système des trois couleurs primitives ; suivi de quelques observations et expériences sur les couleurs de la lumière et sur les couleurs matérielles considérées séparément. Avec figures coloriées. Seconde édition. In-8°. iv, 11 pp. ; 3 pp. [supplement]. 2 hors-exte engraved watercolour plates. Calf, smooth romantic back with long gilt title, Duseuil-style covers, gilt roulette on the cuts, interior caster, brown 1st covers of both copies preserved. (Simier, relieur du Roi).
Rare 2nd edition of the Théorie des couleurs, published in the year of the original, republished in two parts. These two treatises were delivered together or separately, ‘because physicists are more particularly concerned with the colours of light, and in the industrial arts, we generally only consider works that deal with material colours’. Gaspard Grégoire (1751-1846) invented woven and painted velvets known as ‘velours Grégoire’. Some 100 years before Albert Munsell perfected his system of colour order, he had introduced a system of colour order based on the attributes of hue, chroma and lightness. Grégoire, who throughout his life had loved research guided by reflection, was in his old age relieving himself of the work of the practical manufacturer by that of the theoretician, more detached from his achievements. (Benezit, V, 190).
Repeated blue wet stamp from the library of the Société d’encouragement pour l’Industrie nationale, a French association founded in 1801, whose initial aim was to encourage France’s commitment to the industrial revolution by taking up the British challenge, so as to promote all forms of creation in the service of the national interest. Recognised as a public utility in 1824, it promoted, among other things, the industrial arts. Grégoire had presented it with ‘his samples of velvet imitating painting, whose perfection of fabric, beauty of colour and purity of design were generally admired by all the members before whose eyes they appeared and who expressed the desire that such a valuable branch of French industry should be justly encouraged’. (Moniteur de l’Empire, Monday 27 January 1806.) In July 1807, the Société awarded him the silver medal in the 1st class for having succeeded ‘in weaving velvet pictures with a correctness and perfection that did not seem possible to achieve’ (Bull. de la Société d’encouragement, 6th year, July 1807, n° XXXVII), then, in 1813, he obtained flattering citations at the Society’s meeting for his Table des Couleurs, which the Minister of Manufactures and Trade ordered to be sent to the imperial manufactures of tapestries of the Crown and to the Conservatoire des arts et métiers in Paris and Lyon, as it was of very real use to colourists at the time, and the merit of being unpublished. It was later that Chevreul dealt with the same question and overshadowed Grégoire’s work (Ibidem, 12th year, October 1813, session of 6 October), and finally, on 18 April 1821, at the general session of the Société d’Encouragement, his circular fabrics and one of his paintings of flowers on velvet, which was unanimously found to be ‘of rare perfection’, were given special attention and praise. (See H. Algoud, Gaspard Grégoire et ses velours d’art, Paris, Société française d’Imprimerie, 1908).
Library mark in blue pencil on first white endpaper.
A contemporary note handwritten in the margin on p. 18 fills a gap in the printed text.
Some stains to binding, hinges fragile, very slight wear to corners; interior fresh despite some rare foxing, beautiful plates.
Rare edition, elegantly bound by Simier.
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