Historical Painting Techniques, Materials, and Studio Practice

ange of artists' materials, books on art, and plaster casts of antique statues.
Although they sold some patented equipment (such as a sketching stool that
converted to a walking stick and the "Eiffel," a stool made of steel), Roberson
avoided the more innovative artists' equipment patented in the nineteenth
century, such as easels that also served as bicycles or rowing machines (11).
Most products were sold under the Roberson name, although a few materials
such as paper were usually identified by the name of the manufacturer. It is
therefore difficult to establish which materials were made by Roberson and
which brought in to be made up and labeled on the premises. It appears that
the company prepared their own canvas throughout the company's history, a
room used fo r this was still extant in the Parkway workshop until liquidation
(12). They also mixed their own paints, buying pigments and other materials
from wholesale suppliers, in common with most other artists' colormen, not
manufacturing the raw pigments themselves. In general they only bought
small quantities of prepared paints from other artists' colormen, sometimes as
little as one tube or cake bought for a specific customer. However, the popularity
of Roberson's Medium, used fo r oil painting, was such that both British
and foreign colormen bought wholesale quantities of it from Roberson.
After the First World War, when Roberson's business was beginning a gradual
decline, trading practices began to change and by the period following the
Second World War, a reciprocal arrangement with the London colorman
Rowney was made to divide trade into two spheres, Roberson supplying
Rowney with canvas and Rowney supplying Roberson with paints (13).
The catalogues indicate the cost of artists' materials and demonstrate prices
were stable for much of the nineteenth century. There is a clear differentiation
between luxurious pigments such as ultramarine or carmine and other, cheaper
colors; the catalogues show that an ounce (28.35 g) of genuine ultramarine
was twenty-eight times as expensive as its artificial substitute between around
1840 and 1911, with prices almost completely stable in that period. The
catalogues also reflect the introduction of new pigments and demonstrate that
there could be a considerable time lag between the discovery of a pigment
and its commercial application. Roberson & Co. appears to have been comprised
of rather reactionary colormen, who contributed little to technical
innovation, emphasizing the hand-prepared nature of the company's products
until long after many of the other colormen had introduced a degree of
mechanization; their reaction to new developments, therefore, may not be
characteristic of the market as a whole.
Three different prices were given in the catalogues until 1920: wholesale,
retail, and professional. After 1920, discounts offered by artists' colormen to
professional artists were abolished after complaints of abuse (14).
In addition to catalogues, the archive contains a number of sample books of
canvas, paper, and paints, both from Roberson and other companies, that are
of great use in providing identified, untreated material fo r analysis. Projects
have been carried out to establish the composition of the ground on the
canvas samples and the pigments in the paint samples.
Price books. recipe books. and notebooks
Price books indicate both the cost to Roberson of a range of materials and
the resale price. Many of the cost prices are in an alphabetical code, illustrating
the importance of secrecy to the company; an alphabetical code is also used
in the recipe books.
The recipe books in the archive contain a number of formulae for paints,
media, and grounds, as would be expected from an artists' colorman, but also
have recipes for trifle, lemon pickle, wine, boot polish, and blacking fo r harnesses.
This illustrates the early connections between colormen, grocers, and
apothecaries, professions which were separating into distinct trades in the
nineteenth century (15).
Woodcock 31