Watercolors

Ackermann’s Superfine Water Colours were prepared and sold at Rudolph Ackermann’s shop, The Repository of Arts at 101 Strand in London and also sold through print and booksellers in Great Britain. He published a list of watercolor cakes that appeared in 1801 and was appended to A Treatise on Ackermann’s Superfine Water Colours. The list contained instructions on preparing watercolor cakes in the following colors:

Ackermann’s Yellow
Ackermann’s White
Antwerp Blue—Prussian ...

Glycerin is an humectant and plasticizer ingredient in commercial watercolors today, but it was not always an ingredient in commercial watercolors. An examination of watercolors paints from the late 18th and early 19th century (we can call these historical watercolor paints) reveals that glycerin was not a plasticizer and humectant in pan watercolors (called 'cake' colors in that period). For example, Rudolph Ackermann (b. 1764–d. 1834, Anglo-German inventor and publisher who operated a print-shop ...