⏳ PRINTED ON DEMAND — Please allow 3–4 weeks for delivery

This book is printed one copy at a time when you order it. There is no warehouse shelf of these — your copy goes on the press after you check out. Hardcover binding takes longer than paperback. Please allow 3–4 weeks from order to delivery.

About this book

William T. Brannt was Philadelphia's great compiler of trade knowledge — his technical handbooks were the reference shelves of American workshops — and his 1894 Painter Gilder and Varnisher's Companion is the big one for the painting trades. This is the comprehensive Victorian handbook: pigments and their properties, oils and driers, the mixing and grinding of paints, varnishes and japans, the painter's work on wood and plaster, the gilder's leaf and sizes, and the varnisher's finishing — the whole material science of the 1890s paint shop between two covers.

What makes Brannt's companion indispensable is its chemical honesty. Where smaller manuals give recipes, Brannt gives the reasons — why a pigment covers or fades, what a drier does in an oil film, how varnishes are compounded and what makes them durable. The gilding and varnishing sections are equally thorough, treating gold leaf, bronze powders, and the varnisher's polishes as part of one continuous finishing craft.

For restorers and conservators, this is the book that explains what is actually on the Victorian surface — the paint films, the varnish coats, the gilding grounds — in the language of the men who put them there. For painters and finishers, it is the deepest well of period materials knowledge in the American literature, and a reminder of how much the old trade knew about the chemistry of its own work.

The heavyweight Victorian handbook of the painting trades. For painters, gilders, varnishers, restorers, and collectors of the great 19th-century trade manuals.

Details: 6×9" hardcover (case laminate), black and white interior, cream paper.

⚠️ Please read before ordering — about print quality

This is a print-on-demand reprint of a scanned historical document. The pages were scanned from an original 1894 printing, and the print quality of your book reflects the condition of that original scan.

What that means in plain terms: you may see faded text, uneven inking, age spots, show-through from the back of pages, and other imperfections that were in the 1894 original or introduced by the scanning process. These are preserved as-is — they are not printing defects, and they are not something we can fix.

We are not responsible for the condition of the original source material. If you want a pristine modern typeset book, this isn't it. If you want the actual 1894 book with all its character intact, you're in the right place.

Printed on demand by IngramSpark. One copy at a time — no inventory, no waste.