An Early Color Facsimile: Hand-Applied or Printed?

A little thing has distracted me from the ongoing struggles with the current book. For “Map Monster Monday,” Twitter threw up a facsimile of one of the sumptuous “Norman” or “Dieppe” school maps, in the anonymous ca. 1547 atlas owned by Nicolas Vallard:

1856 facsimile of Nicolas Vallard’s untitled map of Jave-le-grande of 1547. National Library of Australia (map RM 2393). Click on map to see at the NLA website.

What intrigued me was the fact that the facsimile was made in color in 1856: was it printed color or hand-applied? Damien Bove and Catherine Delano Smith (2020) have recently explained the difficulties faced in the color reproduction from photographs of the “Gough Map” of Britain (ca. 1400) by the UK’s Ordnance Survey in 1871/2. The OS used its photo-zincographic method which required extensive mediation of the negatives for each color to eliminate extra artifacts (such as the texture of the vellum substrate). This facsimile was much earlier. So what technique was used?

Also, why was the map reproduced, in aid of what piece of map historical scholarship?

In response to my request for more information, the original tweeter, @whitdurham, responded with the link to the above image. A bit more digging, aided by the National Library of Australia’s catalog record, reveals a relatively simple history. The “Vallard Atlas” itself was acquired by the omnivorous British collector of books and manuscripts, Sir Thomas Phillipps (1792–1872) in 1849; it was later acquired by Henry Huntington during the prolonged dispersal of Phillipps’ huge collections and is now in the Huntington Library, San Marino, California, as mssHM 29, and the particular map is chart 1 (fols. 5v–6r): catalogue and image. Phillipps had tried to get the British Museum to acquire his collections, and apparently had the facsimile made in order to entice the BM’s librarians, albeit unsuccessfully.

Some impressions of the facsimile bear a title in the lower margin, from a paste-on slip:

The First Map of Australia, from Nicolas Vallard’s Atlas, 1547, in the Library of Sir Thomas Phillipps, Bart. at Middle Hill, 1856

Here’s a detail of another impression from the NLA:

paste-on title slip. National Library of Australia (map RM 1819 (copy 1)). Click on image to see on NLA website.

In the initial copy to which @whitdurham directed me (above), a pencil annotation was provided instead, reproducing most of the title on the paste-on slip; the lower margin of the Huntington’s impression of the facsimile remains blank. Both NLA and the Huntington give the place of publication as Middle Hill (near Broadway, Worcestershire), which is to say Phillipp’s country seat. At the same time, a printed imprint covered by the poaste-on title slip reads “McGahey, Chromo. Lith. Chester.” This is John McGahey (1816–86).

An examination of the NLA’s digital image of the facsimile quickly demonstrates that it was indeed chromolithographed, but not from a photograph. All the line work was traced and then transferred to one lithographic plate, and further plates used for each (spot) color. The look of the foliage in the lower right of the facsimile (below) is really quite similar to the results of copper-plate etching, with tightly curving squiggles for the leaves. But note that the width of the squiggles are variable: this is indeed a lithographic product. And compare the detail with the original to see the impact of the technique:

Detail of facsimile. National Library of Australia (map RM 2393). Click on image to view on NLA website.

Detail of original chart. Huntington Library (mssHM 29, fol. 6r). Click on image to view on the Huntington website.

The color was not hand-applied to the lithographic facsimile: in the above detail, see the texture to the red below the feet of the men in procession, and on the arms of the women by the tree…that texture does not come from a watercolor brush and is a clear indication of lithographically printed color. Also, the registration of the colors to the line work in the key plate is excellent, with that red being further overprinted to shade the image.

So, well-done chromo-lithograph of a pretty map!

References

Bove, Damien, and Catherine Delano Smith. 2020. “Can You Trust a Facsimile? The Ordnance Survey and the Gough Map.” Sheetlines 119: 49–55.