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Michel Eugène CHEVREUL

De la loi du contraste simultané des couleurs, et de l'assortiment des objets colorés, considéré d'après cette loi

Pitois-Levrault et Cie, Paris 1839, volume de texte : 13x21cm / atlas : 24x28,5cm, 2 volumes reliés.

De la loi du contraste simultané des couleurs, et de l'assortiment des objets colorés, considéré d'après cette loi

The first edition, complete with the two folding tables in the text volume. The second volume has 40 plates, making up a hundred or so illustrations, partly coloured and all signed by Chevreul. These show examples of colour contrasts through lithographed colour spots on light or dark backgrounds. At the end of this volume, there is also a text by Condorcet printed on 9 different-coloured leaves.
Contemporary half light-brown calf, spine with fillets in gilt and blind, gilt dentelle at head and foot, marbled paper pastedowns and endpapers. Plate volume in half-cloth Bradel binding.
An internationally renowned chemist, member of the Royal Society and director of the Natural History Museum, Michel-Eugène Chevreul was inspired by his lectures at the Gobelins tapestry workshops to write this foundational work on colour theory.
This work, of key scientific importance, also had a significant impact on the applied arts (textiles, glass, and so on) and painting. Chevreul's chromatic circles inspired the Impressionists (especially Seurat) and later also the Neo-Impressionists like Sonia and Robert Delaunay. Paul Signac acknowledged his debt in his famous essay D'Eugène Delacroix au Néo-impressionnisme (1899): “During a visit we made to Chevreul at the Gobelins in 1884, which was our initiation into the science of colours, the learned sage told us that around 1850, Delacroix, whom he didn't know, wrote to him expressing the desire to debate with him the scientific theory of colours and ask him about several things that were still troubling him. Unfortunately, Delacroix's permanent sore throat prevented him from going out on the appointed day, and they never met. Perhaps, otherwise, the sage would have enlightened Delacroix even further.”
Rare complete copy of this work, which played a fundamental role in the evolution of modern painting.

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