In 1855, the same year as Leighton Brothers introduced their commercial color printing method from wood blocks in very high volume for the
Illustrated London News, they printed George Barnard's
The Theory and Practice of Landscape Painting in Water Colours for Wm. S. Orr and Co. of London. This book included 26 beautiful chromolithographs reproduced by the Leighton Brothers Chromatic Process, and a cloth binding designed by John Leighton for customers who ordered the book in a cloth binding. The book was originally published in parts during 1854.
Regarding this book Ruari McLean commented in
Victorian Book Design & Colour Printing, p. 192, "On only one plate, no.4, with twenty five panels showing harmonious arrangments of colour, does there appear to be any hand-colouring. Plates 22 and 23 might be sketches, or notes, by a French Impressionist, and are, in their way, among the most improbable examples of colour printing of the whole century."
Jeremy Norman Collection of Images - Creative Commons
John Leighton design on the upper cover of the first edition of Barnard's book. The publishers must have found this design somewhat radical as it was not repeated on the numerous later editions.
Jeremy Norman Collection of Images - Creative Commons
This plate that shows 25 of the most useful pigments was designed and signed in the plate by George C. Leighton, but the colors were applied by hand; otherwise it would have required 25 pulls through the press, and the shading may not have been possible to obtain at the time.
Jeremy Norman Collection of Images - Creative Commons
George C. Leighton signed this spectacular color printed image of The Prismatic Spectrum in the plate.
Jeremy Norman Collection of Images - Creative Commons
Original cloth binding designed by John Leighton for the first edition of Barnard's book.
Jeremy Norman Collection of Images - Creative Commons
Plate 22 as printed by the Leighton Brothers process.
Jeremy Norman Collection of Images - Creative Commons
