In a previous post I described the importance of the paint can in the history of house painting. Rather than having to mix white lead, oil, pigments and driers in a bucket at the job site, painters and homeowners alike were able to buy cans of prepared and tinted paint. This not only made painting easier but it ensured the uniformity of color and quality.
This makes us wonder what colors of prepared paint were available. A ca. 1879 catalog of the wholesaler S. R. Van Duzer of New York City has a comprehensive list of colors which could be purchased in one gallon cans. The list includes:
Inside White Green Gray
Outside White Flesh Color
Yellow Stone Light Brown
Free stone Flaxen Gray
Stone Color French Gray
Buff Color Light Drab
Light Gray Dark Drab
Lavender Light Lead
Silver Gray Dark Lead
Pearl Color Fawn
Yellow Gray French Ochre
Flaxen Yellow Venetian Red
Azure Blue Brown
Pure Gray Peach Color
Subdued Green Vermillion
Red Gray Chrome Yellow
Permanent Green Pea Green
Lilac Black
Light Blue Dark Blue
This list of colors is actually quite large and varied. It includes the natural stone, buff, gray and brown colors advocated by Andrew Jackson Downing and popular in 1840s through the 1860s. It also has many of the greens and reds which were becoming popular during the 1870s.
Although it is nice to have a list of paint colors, the real trick is determining what each actually looked like. We can do this by looking at contemporary paint recipes, sample paint chips, advertising and even artistic representations such as paintings.
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