Does anyone know when colour printing first appeared? Like paintings in books for example....

Like most good inventions, color printing existed in China long before it was brought to the Western world. So when you say "first appeared", are you referring to the entire world, or just to the European world?

Like most good inventions, color printing existed in China long before it was brought to the Western world. So when you say "first appeared", are you referring to the entire world, or just to the European world?


"Paintings in books"...

Probably in China

Moved to History. Might get more answers here...

Like most good inventions, color printing existed in China long before it was brought to the Western world. So when you say "first appeared", are you referring to the entire world, or just to the European world?

Do you have any evidence of this? It's absurd that I would care where the work originated from...

I want early examples of paintings or illustrations in books, not just paper or other mediums but books specifically.

I found this:

1702
Jacob Christoph Le Blon, an artist and businessman, was the first to produce a colour printing method to reproduce paintings for mass consumption. Being an artist he knew that the three primary colours, (red, yellow and blue) plus black and white could produce all other colours. So he utilised the three primary colours, with the paper supplying white and an overlay of the three colours producing black. He hand engraved the plates for each colour as well as for the image to be reproduced. Most of his commercial work was carried out in London and Paris.

http://www.momentuminternet.com.au/~greenda/page16.html

http://www.momentuminternet.com.au/~greenda/pics/leblon.jpg

Actually this is very close to what I'm looking for. Because I'm interested in the idea of paintings for mass consumption.

Does anyone have earlier instances of this happening or other sources?