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[COLOR-PLATE BOOKS]. FIELD, George (1777-1854). Chromatography: or, A Treatise on Colours and Pigments, and of Their Powers in Painting, &c. London: Charles Tilt, 1835. Folio. illustrated with hand-coloured engraved frontispiece and 1 engraved plate. xix, [1, blank], 276 pp. Approximately 13 x 9 ¾”. Bound in modern full library binding of blue cloth, spine lettered in gilt, modern endleaves (spine mildly bumped, library inkstamp and bar-code sticker on ffep, embossed library stamp in upper corners of plates, the first 2 and last 2 text leaves, some offsetting to pages facing plates (including title-page)). Fine. RARE FIRST EDITION OF THE MOST INFLUENTIAL WORK ON COLOR PIGMENT CHEMISTRY WRITTEN IN ENGLAND IN THE EARLY 19TH CENTURY BY A LEADING CHEMIST IN THE FIELD. “In many ways, the most useful literary source concerning pigments rather than painting of the period is Field’s Chromatography, published in 1835. Chromatography was the culmination of Field’s many years of color experiments and manufacture. The first part of Chromatography is concerned with color theory, followed by a section in which the nature and composition of individual pigments are discussed. The last part contains some comments on oils, varnishes and picture cleaning. From an historical point of view an important feature of the first edition is the inclusion of a large number of pigments, no matter how obscure, so that the book fills the gaps left by most of the early 19th-century books on painting.” (R. D. Harley, Artists’ Pigments, pp. 27-28.)