French Government Printer, Multicoloured Engraved Stamps

For this stamp, I think that is 3 colors for the indirect intaglio, with red, blue and green-yellow. For the direct intaglio, 3 couleurs, dark braun, red and yellow.
It is very difficult to see and I think that the printers who had print this stamp, do not remember how it was made.

The "Women of Tahiti" stamp, also issued in 1958, appears to have four colours instead of three (red, green, brown and sand). Since the TD3 Chambon only does 3 recess colours, can it also do any indirect colours?

No indirect colors, that is only 3 ink rollers, but 2 of them put their ink at the same place, mixing ink for an other color.
See : https://goscf.com/t/39442.

Thank you Papy!

I was wondering what this meant:




Now I understand.

Hello,

For understand better, each ink roller put its ink at the right place.
This example is done without take off ink on the surface of the plate roller.

lithograving - Thanks a lot for your post of 12/08/2014 11:39 am bringing the images for the Les tres riches heures du duc de Berry stamp.

I was particularly surprised at your blow-up of the wikitimbres image you managed to conjure up from that tiny round close-up shot through the small lens that I had been able to study on my monitor.

Papy24 - Thanks anyway for your post of 12/08/2014 12:54 pm.

Still, we are most grateful for whatever you succeed in saving from being never discovered or merely completely forgotten.

What you are doing on your blog or your help here is most appreciated.

Florian,

it is not quite clear to me what you think is not quite clear?!




What gives you the impression of a background colour is INDIRECT as usual i.e. yellow, rose-red and blue....

groetjes, Rein

Rein,

Pity you did not include the detail that lithograving borrowed from wikitimbres because the comparison is between what can be seen in lithograving's detail and the one he borrowed from that source.

Now consider the two falconers on the right-hand side of the miniature: the one on horseback and the other leading the party and looking back on the extreme right.

Let's first concentrate on lithograving's detail: the rider looks as if he were wearing a red veil hung on his hat in front of his face while the leader turning his head to look back also looks as if having a red veil hung on his hat in front of his own face but the rider's 'red veil' appears to be situated to the right of his face while that of the leader's is to the left of the latter's, yet both the 'red veils' are printed in red in indirect recess!

Now concetrate again on the detail borrowed from wikitimbres: there are no red veils worn ( except for that of the lady sitting behind her partner) - nothing is out of place here.

To conclude: either lithograving' example was a reject having escaped inspection, possibly printed from faulty cuttings of the indirect recess ink rollers, these having been redone, later on, served to print the wikitimbres' one (as well as mine own) or something else might have gone wrong.

Greetings,

Florián

Hello,

At the beginning of the process TD 6 colors, it was not easy to do. Printers had to do their experiment by themself, and some of them had to do. It was a difficult job.

Florian, I am afraid it is not the truth. It is more complicated.

First, I say again the colors. For the indirect intaglio, blue for the background of the both horses, clothes, and water. Red for the red dog, the horse at the right, and on the back of the second horse and some detail. Greenish yellow for the land.

For the direct intaglio, red for the lady's dress at the left, the first horse and some detail, arm and leg. Dark brun for text, and all the stamp except for the hats of the 2 falconers, some yellow points of the second horse and the land under "Republique... " which are in yellow.

There is indirect intaglio for the face of the falconers. It is the result of a bad wiping of the plate cylinder. The colors are mixed by the wiping. We can see also for the person on the riverside. The good wiping is also very difficult to obtain a good result. This explain the difference between stamps. There is no faulty cutting for this time. And the both impressions are in the right place. But sometimes, it is not in place, and we have a stamp called with the eight-leg's red dog.

Papy24, thanks again for your invaluable information
regarding the print techniques used.
From what you say it appears there were some teething problems
for the printers in the early days as they were basically
learning what this new T.D.6 press was capable of.

Here are a couple more of the continuous French
Art series.

France Scott 1172




This portrait below of King Francois I by Jean Clouet is one of
my favourite stamps.
Great subject matter, rich colours, superb engraving by René Cottet
and a unique printing technique makes this a beautiful stamp.

France Scott 1173



Jean and François Clouet (c.1535, oil on panel) (Louvre)



There appears to be a slight shift of the 3 indirect
light colours (red,yellow and gold) which is noticeable
looking at the left border.
Therefore it seems to me that the second cylinder printing
the 2 (I only see dark green and dark brown) direct colours
did not register properly.

Is that correct?

Papy24 - Many thanks for explaining what I had found so hard to explain.

Thanks to your detailed commentary, I do now have a better understanding of the problems involved in printing these stamps.

Most appreciated.

Hello Lithograving,

There are 3 colors for this stamp King François 1, you forget the black, for the hat and the text.

The french printers had many teething problems as they were learning.

They had to do register correctly the two passes through the machine. One of the problems was the drying of the paper and its variations. The paper tape is once dried, then moistened, printed and dried again, moistened again before the second pass and dried a third time. They had to find the good way and the good temperature for the variations of the paper and make the two impressions superposed. Sometimes they are not well in place like for this stamp.

And many other problems...

Of course,now I see it. For some reason I thought
that the dark brown and dark green were combined
to create black.