At what point does romantic invention become tradition, legend blend into historical fact? Surely the tartan of Bonnie Prince Charlie, that epitome of folklore, was dyed in the colours of mists and heathers with local Scottish dyestuffs? The truth is more prosaic, but no less interesting: archival research and analysis of dyestuffs used in 18th- and 19th-century tartans suggests that, while some local plant dyes may have been used, Scottish dyers were importing a range of widely available brilliant dyes.
It is particualarly appropriate that tartans should be a subject for study at the 19th Meeting of Dyes in History and Archaeology, held in 2000 at the National Museums of Scotland, Edinburgh. The value of complementary studies in the examination of artefacts - the evaluation of historical documents and dyestuff analysis, demonstrated in the tartans project - is underlined by other papers in this volume in which this approach was taken: studies of 17th-century Inca garments (exemplified by the silver figurine on the cover), and the recipe for a yellow pigment attributed to a 17th-century English painter and horticulturalist, Sir Nathaniel Bacon. Documents themselves are also the subject of investigation. Natural antioxidants in materials used by medieval illuminators may have helped to protect the paper or parchment from damage.
Pharmaceutical price lists are little know but valuable aids for research into historical materials. Archaeological textiles and dyestuffs themselves are also discussed: several papers describe methods to obtain the colour purple. Historical objects must also be conserved. One problem that may occur is dyestuffs on paper or textiles bleeding during attempted cleaning, but a method of fixing the dyestuff temporarily, described in this volume, may provide an answer.
This volume is dedicated to the memory of Helmut Schweppe.
Editorial
Recollections of Helmut Schweppe
Contributors
An historical and analytical study of red, pink, green and yellow colours in quality 18th- and early 19th-century Scottish tartans
Anita Quye, Hugh Cheape, John Burnett, Ester S.B. Ferreira, Alison N. Hulme and Hamish McNab
LC-ion trap MS and PDA-HPLC - complementary techniques in the analysis of flavonoid dyes in historical textiles: the case study of an 18th-century herald's tabard
Ester S.B. Ferreira, Anita Quye, Alison N. Hulme and Hamish McNab
LC-Ion trap MS and PDA-HPLC - complementary techniques in the analysis of different components of flavonoid dyes: the example of Persian berries (Rhamnus sp.)
Ester S.B. Ferreira, Alison N. Hulme, Hamish McNab and Anita Quye
Did the medieval illuminator know how to prevent oxidative damage?
Brian H. Davies
Pharmacy price-lists as a new type of documentary source for research into historical artists' materials: the Münchner Taxenprojekt
Christoph Krekel and Andreas Burmester
Sir Nathaniel Bacon's 'pinke'
Jo Kirby
Color in the Andes: Inca garments and 17th-century colonial documents
Elena Phipps
Organic colorants in the 17th-century parsuna of Patriarch Nikon from the State Historical Museum, Moscow
Olga Lantratova and Valery Golikov
The reproduction of a traditional votive figure based on the non-destructive analysis of colorants
Yasuko Noda, Susumu Shimoyama and Masahiro Kasamatsu
An experimental system of analysis of the uses of saffron in Moroccan culture
Jerome Dupont
Identification of six natural red dyes by high-performance liquid chromatography
Masako Saito, Akiko Hayashi and Mariko Kojima
New dye research on Palmyra textiles
Harald Bohmer and Recep Karadag
Analysis of dyes on Jordanian textiles from Khirbet Qazone
John A. Fields
Blue and purple dyestuffs used for ancient textiles
Masanori Sato and Yoshiko Sasaki
Dyeing a purple shade using fresh leaves of the Japanese indigo plant
Satoshi Ushida and Mitsuyo Kawasaki
Chemical studies of the purple dye of Purpura pansa
Rob Withnall, Dharmesh Patel, Chris Cooksey and Ludwig Naegel
Pre-Perkin synthetic routes to purple
Chris Cooksey and Alan Dronsfield
Indigos with uncommon properties
Gundula Voss and Carlo Unverzagt
The application of transmission electron microscopy (TEM) in the research of inorganic colorants in stained glass windows and parchment illustrations
Peggy Fredrickx, Jan Wouters and Dominique Schryvers
Iron-sensitized degradation of black-dyed Maori textiles
Nicole More, Gerald Smith, Ranji Te Kanawa and Ian Miller
The use of cyclododecane for the fixation of bleeding dyes on paper and textiles: a critical evaluation of application methods
Annemette Bruselius Scharff and Ingelise Nielsen
Recent publications concerning the analysis and history of dyes: abstracts of books and papers received before July 2001
Compiled by Penelope Walton Rogers
Reviews
This latest installment is true to form, providing the reader with a wonderful assortment of carefully researched, well-articulated articles…The uniformly high quality of the articles makes the volume a treasure.
Studies in Conservation 50(3) (2005) 235-236
