Description:
Mahogany paint box with the label "REEVES & INWOOD/ SUPERFINE COLOUR PREPARERS/ To the Royal Families & Academies,/ At the Kings Arms & Blue Coat Boy/ No. 300 New Church, Strand,/ London/ Who received the honorary Bounty from the Society/ of the Adelphi for Encouragement of the Arts &c./ For their New Invented Water Colours in Cakes./ which has met with the universal application/ of the most eminent Artists." There are also two engravings, one of the royal coat of arms and the other of boy wearing a long dark coat and Geneva bands, standing in front of a church. The box has individual compartments for cakes of watercolors, and pen knife, brushes, etc. Watercolor paints and their boxes were made and sold by the colourman William Reeves. He established his first shop in the Little Britain area of the City of London in around 1766. Reeves used a blue coat boy as his shop sign as a reference to his charity school background. He has been credited with inventing the moist watercolour paint cake, which were made in the basement of his shop. William later went into partnership with his brother older Thomas (1736-1799), and the two brothers were awarded the Silver Palette of the Society of Arts in 1781 for the invention of the watercolour cake. From the National Portrait Gallery website, "British Artist Suppliers, 1650-1950" - "Reeves & Inwood: "William Reeves took John Inwood, son of the late John Inwood, as apprentice in September 1787 (Webb 1998 p.14) and then into partnership by 1796 when they advertised their products (The Times 12 March 1796). Reeves also took three other apprentices, presumably relatives of his second wife from their Warner surname: Richard in 1792, William in 1793 and Joseph in 1802, the latter being turned over to another master in November 1803 following Reeves’ death (Webb 1998 p.26). William Reeves, colour manufacturer of Islington, died in 1803 without mentioning his business in his will, made 19 July 1802 and proved 18 June 1803, suggesting that he had already given up his interest. Reeves & Inwood advertised as Superfine Colour Preparers (label in watercolour box, Museum of London, repr. Ayres 1985 p.107). Another such paintbox contains cakes of paint bearing the Reeves & Inwood coat of arms (Winterthur Museum, repr. Krill 2002 p.120). Some Reeves & Inwood colours have been subject to recent technical analysis (Ormsby 2005). Inwood’s colours were stocked by William Jones (qv). The business was described as Inwood, late Reeves & Inwood, in 1805 (Morning Chronicle 1 February 1805). However, John Inwood continued to take advantage of the Reeves name, trading as Reeves & Inwood, although by 1811 he was also listed under his own name in the Post Office directory. Holden’s 1811 directory listed at 300 Strand both Reeves & Inwood, colour manufacturers to the Royal Family, and John Inwood, superfine watercolour preparer to the Royal Family. By 1816 C.B. Driver (qv) had taken over Reeves & Inwood’s premises at 300 Strand, and subsequently Driver & Shaw advertised as successors to Reeves & Inwood. Directory listings for Reeves & Inwood are problematic. The last listing in the Post Office directory is in 1809 but Underhill’s directory (not necessarily accurate), successor to Holden’s, continued to list both Reeves & Inwood and John Inwood until 1822 while Kent’s directory listed the business as William Reeves from 1805 to 1818, first listing it as Reeves & Inwood in 1823, conflating both the Holborn Bridge and Strand addresses. The last known listing for Reeves & Inwood is in 1825 (Ayres 1985 p.214) at Holborn Bridge. The Reeves name was an attractive one to use for a business of this kind but it is clear that William Reeves gave up his interest in the business in or before 1803 while John Inwood sold out to the Driver family by 1816."
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https://museums.fivecolleges.edu/detail.php?t=objects&type=ext&id_number=HD+68.122 |
