Chromolithography: Chromolithography introduction

If you are not familiar with chromolithography, it is the term often applied to color printing done in the mid to late nineteenth century up until the early 20th century. The process produced very bright vivid images that almost look like little paintings. There are many different items sought by collectors that used this printing process. I have only been collecting and researching for the last couple of years but have managed to learn quite a bit about the process and have found a great deal of information in published works and information on the internet. My goal here is to describe the general process in a way that can be easily understood. The first link is an article that walks through the general process for the creation of a cigar label. I have also created two videos showing one of my progressive proof books for a cigar label and two flash presentations that show each impression in another cigar label proof book.

This subject is very fascinating with many areas to learn about and when I learn something interesting I will share it here. I will also post any new lithos that I aquire along with the samples I currently own. If you find something in error or have feedback I would love to hear from you.

The making of a cigar label

This is a document I made to explain the basic process for lithography as it was done in it's heyday it is based upon an essay in a book called The building of a book: a series of practical articles printed in 1906.

Video 1 Progressive proof book

This is part one of the presentation for a progressive proof book. The proof book in the video is called Marlena made by the American Lithographic Company in 1910