Wooden box containing artist's watercolours in the form of decoratively moulded colour cakes, made by Winsor & Newton, with additional cakes manufactured by Reeves & Sons; Newman's, Soho Square; and Smith, Warner & Co., mid 19th century.
NOT TO BE ISSUED WITHOUT PERMISSION FROM PAINTINGS SECTION

Wooden box with a sliding lid, with interior divisions originally containing 24 solid moulded cakes of watercolour, and a slot for paint brushes which is lined with an insert of blue paper printed in gilt letters Winsor & Newton Limited 38 Rathbone Place London.

Given by Gerald Cinamon

Thomas and William Reeves had introduced a new kind of watercolour pigment in the form of hard and dry compressed moulded cakes in the 1780s. Other manufacturers started producing them and they remained popular with certain artists until the late19th century. A disadvantage was that (like Chinese ink blocks used for calligraphy) the cakes or blocks needed rubbing down with water to form a suspension of watercolour before they could be used. The blocks are finely detailed and the moulds used to form them must have been made by experienced modellers. (Some Chinese ink blocks have high quality modelling as well and may well have been the prototype for Reeves's invention.) One side of the British-made blocks of colour usually had an appropriate emblematic figure or device, while the back had the name of the manufacturer; sometimes the name of the colour was moulded in as well. They are reminiscent in their detail of the Tassie casts of gems, which were perfected about 1766, although made by a completely different process. However, the first stage of the mould making process, carving a wax original, might have been the same.

E.1350-2001