AN IMPROVED PROCESS FOR ORNAMENTING FICTILE WARES, GLASS, AND METALLIC SURFACES
Year: 1880

page_text: LETTERS PATENT to Emile Andreoli, of the Strand, in the City of Westminster,
for an Invention of "AN IMPROVED PROCESS FOR ORNAMENTING FICTILE
WARES, GLASS, AND METALLIC SURFACES." A communication from abroad
hv Loan Bantisto Cormeuil-Bonnaud of Paris in the Republic of France
PROVISIONAL SPECIFICATION left by the said Emile Andreoli at the Office
of the Commissioners of Patents on the 30th August 1880.
"AN IMPROVED
EMILE ANDREOLI, of the Strand, in the City of Westminster.
PROCESS FOR ORNAMENTING FICTILE WARES, GLASS, AND METALLIC SURFACES."
[A communication from abroad by Jean Baptiste Germeuil-Bonnaud, of Paris, in
the Republic of France.]
The object of this Invention is to reproduce on articles of china, faience,
earthenware, and similar materials, also on glass or metal, in a simple, effective, and
economical manner, pictures and devices in colours without the aid of an artist, and
the Invention consists in the mode of or process for effecting this object.
In carrying out this Invention photography is employed to give the outlines and
the shadows, and the effect is enhanced by the addition of colours.
Let it be supposed that it is desired to reproduce a portrait in colours upon a
china plate. The outlines and details of the portrait are traced onto the plate from
a photographic print in any convenient manner, and to this tracing I may apply
flat tints corresponding to the natural tints of the parts represented, and also if
desirable to form a back-ground.
The plate with the colour thereon is then fired to fix the colours. The colours
used are the usual mineral colours mixed with suitable fluxes, and by preference
ground up with an essential oil.
This part of the colouring and baking process may however in some cases be
dispensed with. A plate of glass is next coated with a film of a sensitized sub-
stance composed of distilled water 100 grammes, syrup of fecula (C 12 H 14 014)
(grape sugar) 30 grammes, gum arabic 15 grammes, pure glycerine several drops,
pure bichromate of potash 10 to 20 grammes.
The sensitized film is then exposed to the action of light in a printing frame
under a negative of the portrait.

page_text: After sufficient exposure the glass plate is removed from the frame, and the
requisite colours to obtain the desired effect are gently laid on the film with a soft
camel's hair brush in the form of powder, the colours to form the shadows being
first applied, and then the pervading tints.
The next operation is to disengage the coloured film from the glass plate, and
this is effected by soaking in water. As however the water would disturb the
.colours on the picture, a protecting coating of "normal collodion" is first applied
thereto.
The coloured film is then plunged into a bath of a 25% solution of caustic
potash. The effect of this bath is to destroy all organic matters and dissolve the
bichromate of potash. At the same time the fluxes mixed with the colours will be
dissolved, but the oxides forming the colours remain. The action of the caustic
bath is to free the colours from their salts of chrome leaving a photographic image
in colours.
The next operation after a careful washing is to replace the fluxes washed out
during the previous operations, and by the caustic potash bath. This is effected
by floating the film with the collodion side downwards onto the top of a
regenerating bath prepared as follows, viz.:-Dissolve in boiling water borate of
soda to saturation; to 10 litres of this solution add 25 grammes of gelatine, and
100 grammes liquid ammonia, let the mixture stand for about 24 hours, and then
pass it through a filter. After subjection to the regenerating bath the film picture
is ready to be placed on the plate of semi-baked china with the face upwards.
This may be done by floating it into its place in the manner well known to
photographers.
After leaving the regenerating bath the photographic picture is, if required, to be
retouched, the full brilliancy of the colours being brought out by the application of
spirits of turpentine.
The plate is then fired in the usual manner, the resulting picture having all the
appearance of hand painting.

page_text: SPECIFICATION in pursuance of the conditions of the Letters Patent filed by
the said Emile Andreoli in the Great Seal Patent Office on the 28th February
1881.
EMILE ANDREOLI, of the Strand, in the City of Westminster. "AN IMPROVED
PROCESS FOR ORNAMENTING FICTILE WARES, GLASS, AND METALLIC SURFACES."
A communication from abroad by Jean Baptiste Germeuil-Bonnaud, of Paris, in
the Republic of France.
The object of this Invention is to improve the process of ornamenting articles of
china, faience, earthenware, and similar materials, also glass or metal, with pictures
and devices in colours without the employment of artistic skill.
In carrying out this Invention photography is employed to give the outlines and
the shadows, and the effect is enhanced by the addition of colours.
Let it be supposed that it is desired to reproduce a portrait in colours upon a
china plate. The first operation is to take a negative by the ordinary process of
photography, and from this to obtain a positive or a transparent photograph. This
photograph is to be used in transferring the outline of the picture to the surface to
be decorated. To this end the operator with an Edison's electric pen, or it may be an
ordinary needle point, traces by means of perforations the outlines and other details
of the picture onto an underlying piece of tracing paper. This tracing he then
applies to the porcelain, and by the aid of a pad charged with black powder he
transfers the outline and details from the paper to the porcelain surface. He thus
obtains in black dotted lines the sketch of the subject, whether portrait, landscape,
or design intended to be reproduced.
Guided by these outlines the operator next paints on the porcelain surface in flat
tints the colours corresponding to the main colours of the picture intended to be
reproduced.
These flat colours serve to increase the brilliancy of the coloured film which is
subsequently to be applied to the porcelain ware, and incorporated therewith by
vitrifaction.
For the preparatory groundwork the operator may use either mineral colours
(couleurs à l'essence), like those which are commonly used for painting on porcelain
or lean colours prepared without essence. The porcelain coloured with this flat
coloured ground work is next to be fired, and the coloured ground work being thus
fixed by the burning, the operator next overlays it with the coloured film just
mentioned, the preparation of which forms the main feature of novelty in the
present Invention.
If mineral colours prepared without essence, and which are fixed by alcohol, are
used, the coloured film may be laid on the unbaked prepared groundwork, and
the painting on the porcelain may be burnt in without any fear of accident.
Nevertheless the preliminary baking of the grounwork is recommended as being
more sure and giving more beautiful results.
In order to prepare the film which is to be coloured, the operator takes a plate of
glass cleaned with iodide of potassium, and upon it when slightly warmed he
applies an hygrometric solution composed as follows:-
Distilled water
Syrup of fecula
Gum arabic
Pure glycerine
-
100 cubic centimetres.
30 grammes.
15 grammes.
several drops,

page_text: It should be remarked that glycerine is to be added only to the mixture for
summer use, and not at all for use in a damp atmosphere.
This solution the operator pours on the plate and dries in an oven until the
coating is just sufficiently hard to allow the finger to pass over it without adhesion.
He then submits the plate to the action of the light in a printing frame under a
superposed photograph print of the portrait, or other picture rendered transparent
by vaseline or other fatty substance, and he thereby obtains upon the glass plate a
surface ready for colouring. The colours are now to be dusted on to the picture
with a soft and fine camel hair brush. If the picture consists of a portrait, the
operator is to proceed as follows, viz. :-First bring out the large shadows with a
mixture in equal parts of iron-violet, blue and black, and remove any superfluous
and non adhering particles of this colour, then continue with a new brush filled
with flesh colour No. 1, then with blue for a background. If it is a landscape
finish with green, ochres, and with blue for the sky and the background. On the
first groundwork already baked, forming the ground colours of the picture, apply
the coloured film, as will be presently explained, and the result will be an
harmonious ensemble which no hand painting could produce.
·
For portraits the operator will finish by the tints which agree with the
complexion of the subject and all its tones. This pallet of metallic colours is only
for hard porcelain, because for faience and soft porcelain, instead of iron-violet, as
is well known, purple and carmine, viz., colours with a basis of gold must be
employed. Before applying this rudimentary coloured print it must be separated
from the plate on which it is fixed. To this end the operator gives it a body and
converts it into a film, which a little later on will be absorbed, rendered elastic,
and applicable to the surface intended to receive it, whether porcelain, faience, or
glass. Thus he pours on the coloured print a layer of normal collodion containing
(if increased elasticity is required) ten grainmes of pure glycerine per litre, and by
this means the colours are protected from the disturbing influence of the water to
which the picture is subsequently submitted. The collodion is then dried for a
moment only to allow of the film keeping its homogenity.
The plate is next immersed in water to disengage the film therefrom, and the
film is then submitted to a bath of caustic potash (consisting of one part by weight
of potash to three of water) or its equivalent, which serves to destroy all organic
matter in the picture, and dissolves the bichromate, thus ensuring the perfect
baking and the transparency of the picture, and giving it also a flexibility which
allows it to be applied to all objects whatever to be decorated. During these
operations the fusible qualities of the oxides have been altered by the partial
dissolution of the fluxes of the prepared colours, but the oxides themselves have not
been attacked, no reactive acid having been used. By this process the metallic
oxides which are applied with the brush appear to view the moment they are
dipped in the caustic bath, which in freeing them from the salt of chrome and
organic matter produces immediately, and with great purity and clearness of tint,
the photographic image in colours, which requires nothing further to attain perfection
but to be applied on its corresponding ground work of flat colours prepared and
baked, as already mentioned, on the porcelain which is to receive it. This colored
photographic proof, which is now an elastic film, is carefully washed and submitted
to further treatment before being laid upon the coloured object as described above.
To raise this film and to transport it to the coloured support upon which it must
remain the edges of the film are cut to facilitate its separation from the plate, and
the glass is then turned over and the film is detached and floated in a regenerating
bath over the object to which it is to be applied. In order to facilitate the
registering of the outlines of the film with those of the coloured ground-work the
following contrivance is, by preference, employed:-At the bottom of the vessel
containing the regenerating bath is a tap for drawing off the liquid, and in this
bath the fictile article is immersed. As the film will not sink, owing to the density
of the bath, the operator when he sees that the outlines of the film correspond

page_text: approximately to those on the fictile article opens the discharge tap, thus allowing
the film, which is guided by the hand, to descend and rest upon the article, where
it will be held by the pressure of the air.
Regenerating Bath.-This bath, which is intended to restore to their original
condition the fluxes contained in the colours applied to the photograph and
injuriously affected by the washing to which the photograph was necessarily
subjected, is composed as follows:-Dissolve in boiling water borate of soda to
saturation, to ten litres of this solution add twenty five grammes of gelatine and
one hundred grammes of liquid ammonia, let it cool and stand for twenty-four
hours, then carefully pass it through filter paper.
This bath will last for a long time, and it is only when the glazing commences
to be less brilliant that it must be renewed. This bath is one of the most important
parts of the process, as, first, the operation is simplified since the operator has no
longer to trouble himself with the fluxes; second, the restoration of fusibility
lost by the oxides in the several baths or washings above described is immediate,
absolute, and complete; the bath does not destroy the oxides, and the fire gives
to them an artistic transparency and a glaze which in no case could ever be
obtained except on soft porcelain, as the photo-chromy on china by the present
process is only approached by the most beautiful effects of hand painting on soft
porcelain.
When out of the bath the dry proof will perfectly show its colours in all their
extent by the application thereto of ordinary essence of turpentine, and it is then
that the operator can, if there be any photographic defects, correct them by
retouching in the same way as ordinary hand painting on porcelain.
Retouching-Photography gives only one plane, or, rather, one uniform colour
in all the planes, the back grounds being vaguely defined by the deficiency of light.
Therefore, in all photographs, there is a general monotony of tints. Instead of
retouching by hand the first plane and the outlines to give them a setting off or
repoussoir, it is preferable to operate photo-mechanically. Let us suppose that the
foreground of a landscape wants more vigour and tone; instead of retouching it by
hand painting the operator should make in the same manner as above fully
described a colored film of this defective part and register it upon the part of the
landscape which is too weak. By this means the foreground is brought out in
stronger colour, and the back ground is left in a lighter chromatic tone. This is
applicable to all the details.
Burning-in. The china, faience, glass, metal, &c., decorated by the process above
described is burnt-in in the muffle, of which the heat varies according to the
hardness or softness of the-material under treatment. It will be understood that
the final bath to which the film was subjected has restored to the oxides the fluxes
which they had lost, and which serve as a medium for the absorption of the oxides
when the fusion commences.
Every object which can be photographed can be reproduced in colours on porcelain,
glass, and metals, but the degree of baking must correspond to the degrees of
fusibility.
If required, the above described process, with a few modifications, can be applied
to barbotine, that is to say, to a certain class of embossed china.
Having now set forth the nature of the Invention of "An Improved Process for
Ornamenting Fictile Wares, Glass, and Metallic Surfaces," as communicated to me
from abroad, I wish it to be understood that under the above in part recited Letters
Patent I claim,―
First. For the reception of the colored photograph, a ground corresponding with
the main tints of the picture prepared in the manner and for the purpose above set
forth.
Second. The use of the caustic potash bath, or its equivalent, as above described.

page_text: And, Lastly. The means above described for restoring to their original state the
fluxes contained in the colours applied to the photographic picture.
In witness whereof, I, the said Emile Andreoli, have hereunto set my hand
and seal, the 28th day of February, in the year of our Lord One thousand
eight hundred and eighty one.
Witness,
H. K. WHITE,
66, Chancery Lane,
London.
EM. ANDREOLI. (L.S.)