Specimens of Oriental Tinting

Folio. (17 5/16 x 13 9/16 inches). 20 plates, each measuring 15 3/8 x 12 7/16 inches, most signed "F.M. Stanton"or initialed "F.M.S." Contemporary green half calf over red boards, green gilt label.

Provenance: Christie's New York, 15 November 2004, lot 38.

A lovely unique album of botanical watercolors.

Oriental tinting was a painting technique much in vogue in England in the 1820s and 1830s. As W. Morgan, a drawing master in Torquay, explained in his 1830 work The Art of Oriental Tinting, it was a method of applying watercolor which gives [the drawings] a softness and brilliancy almost surpassing nature in the effect produced. The method involved transferring a drawing with tracing paper to ivory paper, velvet, or other surface, and working up the colors to the desired brilliancy. Because the design was traced, it appealed to and was practiced by talented amateurs. The creator (about whom nothing is known) of the present album shows a strong sense of both design and color, while still retaining the charming naiveté of what was essentially a folk art technique. The album also shows a penchant for and familiarity with exotic flowers, such as Amaryllis formosissima, Paonia, Rosea Aborea, Dahlia Pinnata, Climbing Cobbea, Alcea Rosa, Hibiscus Purpurea, Camellia Japonica, and others.