Cotton was becoming increasingly popular as fashion changed from heavy materials, especially linen, to light, easily washable fabrics. This was partly due to the expansion of trade with the US, which increased the amount of cotton available. The first cotton arrived in Glasgow in the 1760s and by the 1830s linen manufacture had disappeared from Glasgow as cotton took over. As the fashion for cotton developed, demand grew for it to be dyed and printed so that the cloth could be made into clothing etc.Since the seventeenth century, traders had been bringing back vivid red printed fabrics from the East that didn’t fade in sunlight or run in water. The question, of course, was: how was it done?.
Among the natural dyestuffs available to the dyers of the eighteenth century, madder root held pride of place both for fastness and versatility. According to the mordant used, a whole range of shades could be produced on cotton, from pink through purple and brown to nearly black.
But there was one shade, the most valuable of them all, a brilliant and solid fiery red, which could only be dyed in India and the Near East. British and French dyers could not imitate it, and it was so much sought after that cotton yarn would even be sent to the Levant for dyeing, and re-imported.
The colour was known as Turkey Red, or sometimes Adrianople Red.The coloring material of madder, alizarin, is concentrated in the root.
The chemical alizarin extracted from the roots of the madder plant is the vital ingredient for the production of mordanted red dyes.
The term ‘Turkey red’ applies not to the color but rather to the process that was used to create the bright and fast red.
Mavi Boncuk |
Fabric for Ravza-i Mutahhara (Prophet Muhammad's Tomb), Turkey, Istanbul, Ottoman Empire, 18th century AD, silk, view 2 - Textile Museum, George Washington University
Turkey red[1] is a color that was widely used to dye cotton in the 18th and 19th century. It was made using the root of the rubia plant, through a long and laborious process. It originated in India or Turkey, and was brought to Europe in the 1740s. In France it was known as rouge d'Andrinople.
As the Industrial Revolution spread across Europe, chemists and manufacturers sought new red dyes that could be used for large-scale manufacture of textiles. One popular color imported into Europe from Turkey and India in the 18th and early 19th century was Turkey red, known in France as rouge d'Andrinople. Beginning in the 1740s, this bright red color was used to dye or print cotton textiles in England, the Netherlands and France. Turkey red used the root of the rubia plant as the colorant, but the process was long and complicated, involving multiple soaking of the fabrics in lye, olive oil, sheep's dung, and other ingredients. The fabric was more expensive but resulted in a fine bright and lasting red, similar to carmine, perfectly suited to cotton.
The Society of Arts received more than eighteen submissions concerning Turkey red in the years before 1785. John Wilson, a dyer in Manchester, twice won a premium from the Society: he received £50 in 1761 for producing the best Turkey red and two years later a second award for making the color brighter.
In France, the first privilège to produce Turkey red was granted about 1747, and the Imprimerie Royale printed instructions in 1765.
Dozens of others applied for permission to manufacture their Turkey-red process, and French patents were granted in 1783 and 1791.
As an aside, of interest to fabric collectors, Lyon and the Rhone Valley also produced Turkey red fabrics, called Rouge Adrianople, which were an orangeish-red. This dye had been imported from Turkey through France’s free port in Marseilles. Decades later, in 1776, the secret Turkey red recipe was pirated by dyers in Lyon and added to the list of many colors of high quality dyes for cotton produced there.
Premierement, c'est avec raison que les auteurs du proces verbal regardent comme nouvelle la couleur dont il s'agit; elle l'est en effet et par se beauté et par sa solidité, car en général les nuances legères des couleurs même les plus belles et les plus solides n'ont ni autant d'eclat a proportion, ni autant de ténacité que les mêmes teintures dans leur plénitude. Ce nouveau rose est par conséquent très estimable, et ne peut manquer d'être très avantageux aux manufactures, parce qu'il doit faire un très bel effet dans les siamoises et autres toiles de coton et fil en coton, soit pour habillements, soit pour meubles. Pierre-Joseph Macquer, Rapport de roses solides sur le coton, 30 October 1782, AN F/12/994.
Emanuel Osmont, one of the grantees, won an award for adapting his techniques to produce a shade he called rose of Smyrna.10 This discovery excited the interest of Louis-Auguste Dambourney, himself owner of a dyehouse specializing in Turkey red.
In 1818, an improved Turkey Red process was introduced near Accrington, Lancashire, by Frederick Steiner, an immigrant from Alsace. By this
time the European manufacturers had also mastered the art of producing patterned effects with Turkey Red, employing resist dyeing and, later,
discharge processes. The Madder Style was particularly important, using the fact that the colour of the madder dye was dependent on the
nature of the mordant. William Stirling introduced Turkey Red to the Vale of Leven in southwest Scotland in 1828. A few years later Turkey Red dyeing was practiced on a large scale in Holland.
The dyeing of Turkey-red on cotton, though a very late discovery in this kingdom, was established in Glasgow earlier than any part of Great Britain. In the year 1785, Mr. George Mackintosh … engaged Monsieur Papillon, an eminent Turkey-red dyer from Rouen in Normandy, carried him with him to Glasgow, and … built an extensive dye-house near Dalmarnock.
The fabric was widely exported from Europe to Africa, the Middle East and America. In 19th-century America, it was widely used in making the traditional patchwork quilt.
Turkey red manufacturers were constantly looking for ways to improve, simplify or speed their process and they also employed university-trained chemists who conducted experiments on new dyestuffs, including the development of synthetic dyes. In the 1880s the production of alizarin was synthesized and German technical monopoly in production of this artificial alizarin, which speeded up the dyeing process considerably, resulted in a reduction in price of the finished goods.
In 1897, in response to this and increasingly difficult trading conditions, compounded by restrictive tariffs on imports to India introduced in the 1890s, the leading Vale of Leven companies joined forces to found the United Turkey Red Company.Artificial alizarin generated a simpler and more consistent dyeing process that reduced labour costs, and because it required less oiling and mordanting, and less soap for cleaning, the material costs were also reduced. However, the ‘natural’ method of dyeing still enjoyed the highest prestige and ‘authentic’ Turkey red cottons from the Vale of Leven factories sold well into the twentieth century.
The industry, employing thousands of skilled and well-paid workers, had poor labour relations. Strikes were frequent, as were lay-offs later in the century, and the Turkey red process was noxious and dangerous. The hands of the Turkey red workers were permanently tinged red, and since they mostly lived in close proximity to the factories, in families where often all of the adults worked for the same firm, with oppressive management regimes to ensure that the technical secrets of dyeing and printing were protected, the businesses involved were viewed with scant affection. The impact on the natural environment was also problematical, with industrial pollution in the River Leven a cause for concern and local resentment throughout the life of the industry.
The Process
The process of dyeing cotton turkey red, as it was practiced in Turkey in the 18th century, was described in a text by a Manchester dyer[2] in 1786:
1. Boil cotton in lye of Barilla or wood ash
2. Wash and dry
3. Steep in a liquor of Barilla ash or soda plus sheep's dung and olive oil
4. Rinse, let stand 12 hours, dry
5. Repeat steps 3 and 4 three times.
6. Steep in a fresh liquor of Barilla ash or soda, sheep's dung, olive oil and white argol.
7. Rinse and dry
8. Repeat steps 6 and 7 three times.
9. Treat with gall nut solution
10. Wash and dry
11. Repeat steps 9 and 10 once.
12. Treat with a solution of alum, or alum mixed with ashes and Saccharum Saturni (lead acetate).
13. Dry, wash, dry.
14. Madder once or twice with Turkey madder to which a little sheep's blood is added.
15. Wash
16. Boil in a lye made of soda ash or the dung liquor
17. Wash and dry.[3]
According to Robert Chenciner, in Madder Red: A History of Luxury and Trade, it was a ‘noxious, stinking dyeing process with appeal limited to those who feel equally at home in the kitchen or the cowshed.’ Chenciner goes on to tell us that an 18th-century traveller in Greece, hunting for the secrets of Turkey red, noted that in a certain village where it was produced ‘the stench was so bad its only inhabitants were the dyers and their families.’ This is only too credible, as the dyeing processes required the use of copious quantities of blood, urine and animal dung!
[2] John Wilson, An Essay on Light and Colours, Manchester, 1786. Pg. 21-22.
Jump up ^ John Wilson, An Essay on Light and Colours, Manchester, 1786. Pg. 21-22.
[3] Sarah Lowengard (2006), The Creation of Color in 18th Century Europe,Columbia University Press. LINK
