Biography
Le Blon was born on May 2, 1667 in Frankfurt am Main, Germany, a descendant of Huguenots fleeing France in 1576, having settled there. His grandmother was a daughter of the artist and engraver Matthaus Merian the Elder (1593–1650). Showing an early interest in engraving and painting, he had, sometime between 1696 and 1702, an extended stay in Rome where he is reported to have studied art under the painter and engraver Carlo Maratta (1625–1713) [1]. Around 1702 Le Blon moved to Amsterdam, where he worked as a miniature painter and engraver. In 1708/1709 he is known to have made colorant mixing experiments in Amsterdam, and in 1710 he made his first color prints with yellow, red, and blue printing plates. In 1717 he moved to London where he received a royal patent for the three-color printing and a related textile weaving process [2]. In 1722 he published a small book on painting, Coloritto, in French and English [3]. There he stated that “Painting can represent all visible...
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References
Lilien, O.M.: Jacob Christoph Le Blon, 1667–1741: Inventor of three- and four colour printing. Hiersemann, Stuttgart (1985)
Lowengard, S.: Jacob Christoph Le Blon’s system of three-color printing and weaving. In: The Creation of Color in the 18th century Europe. Columbia University Press, New York (2006). http:www.gutenberg-e.org/lowengard/C_Chap14.html. Accessed 11 May 2015
Le Blon, J. C.: Coloritto, or the Harmony of Colouring in Painting: Reduced to Mechanical Practice (with parallel French text). London (ca.1725)
Gautier de Montdorge, A.: L’art d’imprimer les tableaux. Traité d’apres les écrits, les opérations et les instructions verbales de J.-C. Le Blon. Mercier, Paris (1756)
Aguilonius, F.: Opticorum Libri Sex. Plantin, Antwerp (1613)
Boyle, R. Experiments and Considerations Touching Colours. Herringman, London (1664)
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Kuehni, R. (2014). Le Blon, Jacob Christoph. In: Luo, R. (eds) Encyclopedia of Color Science and Technology. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-27851-8_302-1
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-27851-8_302-1
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