Color terminology

Anne Lane <alane<-a t->infoave< . >net> writes

>We are in the process of trying to standardize the terminology we
>use in our cataloguing, and our Curator of Art was wondering if
>there is any standard terminology for color shades

Regarding your question concerning standardized color terminology,
my colleague Elizabeth Lunning (The Menil Collection, Houston) and I
recently produced a set of 26 samples of various types of papers (a
number of them are antique papers from the 18th and 19th century).
This set is intended as an aid to curators, collectors,
conservators, and cataloguers in describing the color, thickness,
and texture of papers one commonly encounters in the study and
examination of works of art on paper.  While our selection is
greatly simplified, compared to the enormous range of colors
available in, for example, a Pantone set, we believed that whatever
one might lose in terms of precision might be regained in
efficiency.  Also, we expect that these papers will simply be
convenient "benchmarks" that can be modified by further description
to suit the particular task, if one chooses to do so.

The set of samples and its accompanying text were published by the
Print Council of America, and are available by contacting

    Erika Enwright
    Print Study Room
    The Fogg Art Museum
    Harvard University
    32 Quincy Street
    Cambridge MA 02138
    617-495-2325.

Roy Perkinson

                                  ***
                  Conservation DistList Instance 11:11
                 Distributed: Wednesday, July 23, 1997
                       Message Id: cdl-11-11-002
                                  ***