The Dyer's Handbook: Memoirs of an 18th-Century Master Colourist

Mémoires de teinture (Memoirs on Dyeing) by an anonymous French gentleman-clothier in the Age of Enlightenment, translated and contextualized. The manuscript is privately owned, and only one copy is known to exist. It is fragile and beautiful; the descriptions of dyeing processes contained in it are illustrated by samples of fine broadcloth dyed in the corresponding colours. This single French edition was the sole medium from which to make the memoirs accessible to the public. This volume includes a translation of the original manuscript, with the addition of a number of essays to put this exceptional document in its historical, economic, technological contexts.
For those historians who have long been fascinated by the change in scale and the amount of innovation that occurred in woollen cloth production in Europe during the 17th and 18th centuries, the Memoirs on Dyeing brings first-hand insight into the daily preoccupations and tasks of a key actor in the success story of the Languedocian broadcloth production specially devised for export to the Levant. Even non-specialists may be interested in understanding the clever management and technical organisation that made it possible for the author’s manufacture to produce, dye, finish, pack and export up to 1,375 pieces of superfine broadcloth per year, representing nearly 51 km of cloth of an estimated total weight of about 15,000 kg. Per day, it implied dyeing a minimum of eight half-pieces of cloth, each measuring 15 to 17 ells (18 to 19 metres) in length and that’s without counting any holiday off.

The Memoirs also contribute new elements to clarify important technological issues about the competition that took place between the textile centres of Venice, the Netherlands, England and France to conquer the vast markets of the Ottoman Empire and beyond. Comparisons are drawn between the Languedocian and English methods, each with a long tradition of wool weaving and dyeing.