As Leslie Carlyle points out in The Artist's Assistant: Oil Painting Instruction Manuals and Handbooks in Britain 1800-1900 with Reference to Selected Eighteenth-Century Sources (a revised and expanded edition of her doctoral dissertation), the exchange and transmission of information among artists on the technical aspects of their calling have been carried on through mostly an "oral tradition," with some further enlightenment provided through artists' diaries, letters, and the occasional published article. In the nineteenth century in England, however, a remarkable number of books and pamphlets having to do with oil painting were published, following on the heels of a large body of work published in the previous century. This book contains remarkable scholarship of the highest order. It provides a wealth of information about the development of English oil painting in an accessible and readable way, and each chapter concludes with an extensive list of notes and references. Its story, to me at least, reveals that two hundred years ago artists and manufacturers were dealing thoughtfully and thoroughly with their materials. This is a reference that should be in every art-history library. It will prove an especially valuable resource for conservators who do research in order to treat nineteenth-century English paintings. --Publisher description

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