WATER COLOUR PRINTING

Text tone, light edge chipping to the four page preliminary text sheet, otherwise light wear and crisp colors; Portfolio with hinge starting but firm, edgeworn, chipping to spine head, front cover fade and rubbed, crease to bottom front corner, hand written spine title and "I U S" at spine bottom, pencil "Berte, Jean, Inc" atop the front cover with "IUS" pencilled at bottom, bookplates on both paste-downs: "From the Library of The Research Laboratories of the International Printing Ink Corporation and subsidiary companies," intact string ties. Solid hardcover portfolio. ; Six sections and four pages of preliminary text, loose in portfolio. Each of the sections contains illustrations (part colored) with descriptive letterpress. "Not long after the French printer Jean Berté (1883-1981) immigrated to the United States, he applied for a patent to his watercolor printing process. The technique was similar to other letterpress methods, except plates were cut in soft rubber and the inks were water-based rather than oil. As in Japanese woodblock printing, a separate plate was cut for each color and the color was laid on in a particular order of translucent layers." - Julia L Mellby; "Jean Berté's Water Colour Printing Process"; Graphic Arts Collection, Princeton University Library. Portfolio and its contents were printed by the Aldus Press. This copy has the Cray-Finne Co of New York on its title page, and likely this printing firm was using the portfolio in marketing its Jean Berte Process offerings. "It is the purpose of this book to illustrate some of the types of work which can be done by this process and explain how the effects are obtained. There are four outstanding advantages to the Jean Berte Process which may be summarized as follows: first, brilliance and purity of colour; second, the appearance of hand colouring; third, the ability to overprint colours as much as desired; fourth, the use of papers having a decided texture. The use of all four features bring the best results." - preliminary text. Hard-to-find portfolio illustrating the eye-catching Berte printing technique, used for example to produce the vibrant dust jackets of the Batsford travel books of 1930-1950s. ; Ex-Library; 0 pages.…