what is a "sanguine carbon print" ?

[pdeeh]

I'm just reading Margaret Harker's history of the Linked Ring, and a few of the plates are labelled Sanguine carbon print.

I can't find any reference to this as a separate process in either of my reference books (Farber, Crawford) or online, but I also know there were dozens of different carbon processes.

It ("sanguine") is a term applied to a reddish-brown colour, so I surmise that a "sanguine carbon" would be one made with a red-brown pigment rather than black.

Anyone know a definitive answer?

 

[Andrew O'Neill]

I think it refers to the colour of the print. Reddish.

 

[gzinsel]

for those of us, who went to art school, and HAD to use conte crayons for drawing class, will remember there was a choice of black, bister, and sanguine. sanguine was "used" for . . . to mimic the color or "hue" (if you were very "artsy") of Watteau drawings!!!

 

[Mustafa Umut Sarac]

I think they call Michelangelo's and Da Vinci's reddish chalk , sanguine. Many used before and after them. May be Italy specific rock but very famous in art world.

 

[Mustafa Umut Sarac]

 

[erikg]

I was wondering what the connection was (if any) to "being sanguine" or optimistic. Here it is from the OED:

sanguine |ˈsaNGgwin|
adjective
1 optimistic or positive, esp. in an apparently bad or difficult situation: he is sanguine about prospects for the global economy. the committee takes a more sanguine view.
• (in medieval science and medicine) of or having the constitution associated with the predominance of blood among the bodily humors, supposedly marked by a ruddy complexion and an optimistic disposition.
• archaic (of the complexion) florid; ruddy.
2 literary & Heraldry blood-red.
3 archaic bloody or bloodthirsty.
noun
a blood-red color.
• a deep red-brown crayon or pencil containing iron oxide.
• Heraldry a blood-red stain used in blazoning.
DERIVATIVES
sanguinely adverb,
sanguineness noun
ORIGIN Middle English: from Old French sanguin(e)‘blood-red,’ from Latin sanguineus ‘of blood,’ from sanguis, sanguin- ‘blood.’