March 26, 2014: The Color Book

[xoxoxoBruce]

Way back in 1692 a dude called A. Boogert completed his book, his only book.
Not because he was a slouch, but because it had almost 800 pages, written by hand with quill pens, and written in Dutch...
although that's less impressive considering he lived in Holland.



I suspect back before refrigeration, the available food including the wild mushrooms, inspired him to write this book describing the hundreds of colors he saw. But more than describe, he wrote how to mix each color/tone, and hand painted a sample into the book... scores of them, maybe hundreds.



That right there is pretty damn impressive.
The shame is there was understandably only one copy, and pre-internet only a handful of people ever got to see it, but that doesn't diminish Boogert's accomplishment.

It wasn't until Pantone published their book 50 years ago, that a common reference was available.

Seen at NAG.
She got it from Erik Kwakkel via Colossal.