Glossary
Falcon Glasshouse (Fl. 18th–19th century)
One of several glass manufactures in eighteenth-century London.
The Falcon glasshouse, established in 1693, was located on Holland St., Southwark, near Blackfriars Bridge.
References:
Bailey, 1783: "Hall, Stephen"; Buckley, 1915.
Field, George (b. 1777, Berkhampsted (Herts.), England; d. 1854, Isleworth, England)
English colorman and theorist.
Field was the leading color chemist in early nineteenth-century Britain. He was friendly with a great many artists (and sold colors to still more). His theories, outlined in Chromatography, draws analogies between colour, line, sound, language and the structure of the universe. Subscribers to his books include John Constable, J. M. W. Turner and Samuel F. B. Morse; Owen Jones adopted his ideas in his plans for the decoration of the Crystal Palace (1851).
Relevant Publications:
Chromatography (London, 1835).
References:
Harley, 1982: 27–8; Grove Art Online: David Brett, "George Field."
Flachat, Jean-Claude (1718–1775)
French merchant and traveler.
Flachat was a Lyon manufacturer of rouge d'Andrinople and later provost of manufactures (prevôt des manufactures) in that city. He had lived in the Ottoman empire and, in 1748, he imported Greek workers to establish a factory to manufacture cloths dyed rouge d'andrinople (Turkey red). The products were well received and quickly copied.
Relevant Publications:
Observations sur le commerce & sur les arts d'une partie de l'Europe de l'Asie et de l'Afrique et même des Indes orientales 2 vols (Lyon & Paris, 1756).
References:
Michaud, 1966: "Flachat"; AN F/12/1330: Dossier Flachat (1757–68; Chateau, 1876:3; Flachat, 1756.
Flint, white flint
A hard, fine-grained stone similar to quartz. Flint contains a high proportion of silica, plus some calcium. Flint is used in ceramic bodies and glazes, and glassmaking.
Florentine lake
Alternate names: Crimson lake, Kugellack (German).
Florentine lake is a deep, transparent, ruby-red lake pigment with bluish undertone, made from kermes, a natural dyestuff of insect origin.
Carmine lake began to replace Florentine lake in the 16th century, with the availability of cochineal.
References:
Mayer, 1957: 53.
Web sites:
Getty Research Institute, Art and Architecture Thesaurus, "Crimson Lake" Web Link
Getty Research Institute, Art and Architecture Thesaurus, "Carmine" Web Link
Flux
A flux is a substance or mixture of substances that will lower the melting or softening temperature of the mixture in which it is present.
A flux may also increase the fusibility of a mixture.
The behavior of any flux depends on both the particle size of the composition and the melting temperatures of each component. It will also depend on whether the flux has been premelted and whether they were melted quickly or slowly.
Borax, lead and arsenic were frequently used in the composition of fluxes for enamel an glass.
References:
Kingery and Vandiver, 1986: 319; Dossie, 1758: 1:271–3.
Web sites:
Digital Fire Corporation, "Ceramic Materials.Info" Web Link
Getty Research Institute, Art and Architecture Thesaurus, "Flux" Web Link
Follie, Louis-Guillaume de la (b. 1739, Rouen; d. 1780, Rouen)
French natural philosopher, industrialist and inventor.
De la Follie was a provincial virtuoso typical of his time: reasonably well educated, involved in public life, determined to dedicate himself to a higher calling. He was sent to Paris for 2 years and then Lyon to learn manufacturing for the family business. Introduced to chemistry by a family friend, his interest in science extended beyond, but clearly related to business concerns. (Significant among those was a partnership with Louis-Auguste Dambourney.) de la Follie investigated many chemical subjects and chemically-derived phenomena including oil of vitriol, blue colors made from silver, textile printing with Prussian blue, a painter's yellow for indiennes, methods to dye black cotton and linen, Chinese varnish and fireworks. (Apparently he was well known for his interest in the latter.) He died in a laboratory accident.
de la Follie submitted many of his discoveries, those related to his industrial concerns, to regional or government institutions for approval or dissemination, and a few achieved widespread public acclaim. The results of his experiments with oil of vitriol, for example, were adopted at other dyehouses, notably (if briefly) the Gobelins tapestry works. Published work include a treatise on physics and chemistry in the form of a novel, and a theory of dyeing presented to (but rejected by) the Paris Academy, which later appeared in the Journal de physique.
Affiliations:
Rouen Academy
Relevant Publications:
Experiments et Observations Concernant la Manufacture d'Huile de Vitriol," Journal de physique n.s. v. 2 (October 1774): 335.
Le philosophe sans prétention ou l'homme rare. Ouvrage physique, chymique politique et moral, dédié aux savans... Paris, 1775.
"Réflexions sur la théorie de la teinture, suivies d'expériences utiles pour les manufactures," Journal de physique 12, part 1 (January 1778): 66–78.
other articles in the Journal de physique
References:
Michaud, 1966: "de la Follie"; AAR: Éloge de de la Follie, Carton C21; Pinault, 1987.
Fourcroy, Antoine Francois, comte de (b. 1755, Paris; d. 1809, Paris)
French chemist known for his studies of animals and plants.
Fourcroy trained to be a doctor but never practiced medicine. He chose instead to give private lectures in chemistry, eventually succeeding to the chair of chemistry at the Jardin du Roi. In 1787, Fourcroy collaborated with Lavoisier, Guyton de Moreau and Berthollet in the revision of chemical nomenclature, and he completed the chemical section of the Encyclopédie méthodique begun by Guyton de Morveau.
Fourcroy's own experimental work involved the medicinal value of mineral water, and the application of chemistry to medicine more generally.
Affiliations:
Academy of Sciences (elected 1785)
Jardin du Roi (Jardin des Plantes)
Relevant Publications:
Leçons élémentaires d'histore naturelle et de chimie (Paris, 1782).
Principes de chimie (Paris, 1786).
Méthode de nomenclature chimique (with Lavoisier, Berthollet and Guyton de Morveau) (Paris, 1787).
References:
DSB, 1970–80: 5: 89–93.
Web sites:
Guyton de Morveau, Lavoisier, Berthollet, and Fourcroy, "A Dictionary of the New Chymical Nomenclature" Carmen Giunta, Classic Chemistry Web Link
Fresco
A mural-painting technique which uses coloring materials in a water medium to paint on freshly-laid lime plaster.
Web sites:
Getty Research Institute, Art and Architecture Thesaurus, "Fresco" Web Link
Frit
Alternate names: Fondant (ceramic manufacture).
A pre-mixed and pre-melted glass used in a glass, enamel or glaze composition to make otherwise soluble materials insoluble. Frits tend to melt more evenly than combinations of raw materials and so are especially useful for painting enamels.
References:
Mayer, 1957: 53; Kingery and Vandiver, 1986: 319.
Web sites:
Digitalfire, "Ceramic Materials Info" Web Link
Fulhame, Elizabeth (Fl. 1794)
English author and experimenter.
Fulhame is somewhat mysterious, known almost exclusively as the author of a book about combustion, published in 1794, in which she proposed a catalytic role for water in oxidation-reduction reactions. Her own interest was to develop a way to color cloth with gold, silver or other metals, as a patterning technique; her discussion proved to have relevance to certain photographic processes. An abstract of her book, appeared in Annales de Chimie vol. 26 (1798), 58.
From the preface and other sources, Fulhame and her husband, a physician who had been president of the Edinburgh Physical Society in the 1780s, appear to have been members of the politically liberal community that included Joseph Priestley. The introduction to her book cites its publication as due to the review and encouragement of a prominent chemist, who was probably Priestley.
It appears that Mrs. Fulhame died about the time her book was published.
Affiliations:
Chemical Society of Philadelphia
Relevant Publications:
An Essay on Combustion with a View to a New Art of Dying and Painting Wherein the Phlogistic and Antiphlogistic Hypotheses are Proved Erroneous (London, 1794).
References:
Wheeler and Partington, 1960: 121, n. 139; Fulhame, 1794.
Web sites:
Keith J. Laidler and Athel Cornish-Bowden, "Elizabeth Fulhame and the Discovery of Catalysis: 100 Years before Buchner" Web Link
Fustic
Alternate names: Yellow wood, Old fustic, Bois jaune (French), Gelbholz (German).
An organic yellow coloring material produced from the liquid extracted from the wood of the tree chlorophora tinctoria. Fustic was used as a dyestuff and only occasionally as a pigment.
References:
Adrosko, 1971: 31; Schweppe, 1992: 91.
