Historical Painting Techniques, Materials, and Studio Practice

36

stranded by pack ice that crushed their ship, Marston mixed his paints with

lamp wick to caulk the seams of the open boat in order to successfully fe tch

help. The Egyptologist Howard Carter was also a customer; he bought artists'

materials, using Roberson as an agent, and sent cases of drawings of his finds

to the company fo r distribution.

The effect of both world wars is seen, to some extent, mainly as a series of

problems of supply, raw materials being difficult to obtain and materials such

as paper subject to government restrictions. Some pigments were also in short

supply, vermilion increasing in price by 120 percent in 1940 because of short­

ages of mercury, which was used fo r shell and mine detonators, and because

difficulties with chrome colors were being anticipated as they were used fo r

dyes fo r khaki and in the manufacture of poison gas (29). Roberson was

fo rtunate in sustaining only slight damage from an incendiary bomb in 1940

and avoiding the more extensive damage experienced by other colormen.

Post-war disruption is also evident; letters from Roberson in 1919 showed

the difficulties of supply and delivery facing the colormen. Canvas was in

short supply, materials usually coming from Russia were unobtainable, and

turpentine was scarce and expensive; even tin tubes in which to pack the

colors were difficult to find (30). Similar difficulties were experienced during

World War II. The world wars, the depression of the 1930s, and the rise of

new reproduction methods contributed to Roberson's decline in the twen­

tieth century.

The archive as a research resource

The Roberson Archive is chiefly relevant to the study of the materials and

techniques of British artists. Its relevance outside the United Kingdom is

confined to the small number of fo reign artists who bought from the com­

pany and the larger number of suppliers and retailers who traded with them.

These contacts include firms in all five continents, but the most numerous

contacts were in France, Germany, and the United States.

The archive has been used in the last year to fo llow up a number of queries

from both the United Kingdom and abroad. Although access will be restricted

until the end of 1996 (when the cataloguing project ends), thereafter it will

be available fo r study. A database of account holders, regarded as the most

informative part of the archive, is being compiled, along with details of their

purchases, and it is hoped that a checklist of account holders will be published.

The database will make it possible to search fo r both particular artists and

specific materials and, when used in conjunction with information from rec­

ipe books and catalogues, should provide a clearer picture of what paintings

were made of and what artists really used in the nineteenth and early twen­

tieth centuries.

Acknowledgments

The Roberson Archive is published by permission of the Syndics of the Fitzwilliam

Museum, University of Cambridge and is generously funded by the Leverhulme

Trust.

Notes

1. Gallagher, M. 1991. The Roberson Archive: inventory oj written and printed material.
   Unpublished typescript. Cambridge: Hamilton Kerr Institute, 2. See also Kent's
   Original London Directory. 1817. Hamilton Kerr Institute (HKI) MS 785-1993,
   fol. 54v, 223. See also C. Roberson & Co. Ltd. 1969-1970 Catalogue, ii. Charles
   Roberson does not appear in trade directories at this address until Pigot's direc­
   tory was published (Pigot & Co. 's Metropolitan new alphabetical directory. 1922-
   1923, 68). A letter to the National Gallery in London dated 1923 states that
   Charles Roberson founded the company in 1819 (HKI MS 862-1993,293).


2. Kent's Original London Directory. Op. cit. (note 1).


3. HKI MS 204-1993, 638.

Historical Painting Techniques, Materials, and Studio Practice