I know its a bit geeky, but I got really excited when I came across a catalog of vintage art supplies. One of my favorite things to shop for is stationery and art supplies.
This isn’t a new thing, I’ve been doing it ever since I had my own pocket money. I had a very cool and well-equipped pencil case at school.
All the images of vintage art supplies and the art adverts are from a 1914 catalog. “Priced catalogue of artists’ materials: supplies for oil painting, watercolor painting, china painting … and drawing materials for architects and engineers, manual training schools and colleges.”
The art supplies catalog was published by Devoe & Raynolds Co., Inc New York N. Y. They were America’s first and oldest paint company founded in 1754. The companies manufacturing base at the time of print was in New York. The company was bought by the Celanese Corporation in 1964.
At the front of the catalog the company states: “The strongest testimonial for reliability. The oldest and largest manufacturers of Artists’ Materials, Brushes, Paints, Varnishes in the entire world.”
At the time of printing of the catalog, Devoe & Raynolds had offices in New York, Chicago and Kansas.
Vintage Catalogs
Vintage catalogs are a rich source for sketches and paintings. Seed packet catalogs around this time are well known for their cool vintage floral images.
It was fun to find one for artists’ materials. Catalogs these days are not only less common due to the increase in online ordering and shopping. Also, the items in most modern-day catalogs are photographed and not drawn.
The catalog is full of back and white sketches of the products, such as paint tubes, brushes, paint tins, and pots of varnish. I have collected the sketches of individual vintage artist supplies and organized them into like groups.
From these artists’ materials groups, I have made posters for each grouping. These images of vintage art supplies would look fabulous framed in perhaps a craft or art room study. They would also be great for decoupage craft projects and scrapbooking.
As well as the black and white sketches, the catalog contained a few wonderful colorful adverts. These adverts are for particular products such as pencils and watercolor paints. I have included these adverts in this curated collection of artist materials.
The Vintage Artists Supplies Drawings
All these images are in the Pubic Domain so you are free to use them how you wish.
To download the image you want just click on the title above the image and a high-resolution picture should open in your browser. Then you can print this picture on your home printer or save it to your hard drive to send to an online print shop.
1. Drawings of Vintage Paint Tubes
A collection of paint tubes from the catalog in various sizes and for different types of paint. Oil paint, watercolors and China paint.
The oil paint tubes in the catalog are described as follows:
“Devoe’s & Co’s tube paints are prepared from carefully selected pigments- foreign or their own make- thoroughly incorporated with the purest oil. An objection is frequently made to the thin condition of many tube paints ground by foreign makes; by Devoe’s system they secure that firm consistency and fineness of texture required by artists.”
2. Vintage Artist Supplies – Paint Brushes
Some of the drawings of paint brushes featured in the catalog.
3. Paint Boxes 1
There are many watercolor and oil-based paint boxes in the catalog. Here are just a selection of them. There is another poster of them below and a color advert at the end of the post.
4. Paint Boxes and Pallets 2
The small square blocks in the poster below are cakes of watercolor paints.
5. Vintage Artists Materials – Pencils
There is also a wonderful colorful advert for the famous Czech KOH-I-Noor lead pencils further down this post.
6. Artists Materials – Bottles and Pots 1
One of 2 poster collections of vintage art supplies in bottles, pots and jars. From specialist paints, drawing inks to oils and varnishes.
7. Bottles and Pots 2
“Indestructible paste” is for mounting photographs prints and engravings according to the catalogs description.
8. Erasers etc.
A collection of different types of erasers and rubbers in the catalog. The poster also includes a compass and some thumbtacks.
There is also a colorful advert for erasers in the next section.
The Artists’ Materials Color Ads
Spread through the catalog were 5 color ads for various artists’ materials from paint to pencils.
9. Advert For Oil Painting Supplies
10. Advert for Watercolor Paints
I love the triangular color wheel with this advert. There are more vibrant color wheel posters and charts available to print on Pictureboxblue.
11. Advert For Pencils
This famous brand of pencils is described in the catalog as follows:
“KOH-I-Noor lead pencils Hexagon Yellow Polished Cedar. Made of the finest compressed lead and very carefully graded each pencil answer into its indicated degrees from 9H to 6B.”
Koh-i-Noor Hardtmuth is one of the oldest stationery companies in the world established in 1790. It is a Czech company whose name came from the famous Koh-i-Noor diamond (Persian for “Mountain of Light”), part of the Crown Jewels of the United Kingdom, and the largest diamond in the world at the time.
12. Advert for Erasers
These erasers are made by the same stationery company as the pencils.
Hardmuth’s Pink Pliable Rubber: “This rubber is soft and pliable and will erase pencil marks easily without injury to Tracing Paper or other delicate material in boxes“.
Joseph Hardtmuth first established his pencil factory in Vienna in 1792 after first creating an artificial graphite pencil by mixing powdered graphite with clay.
This new method of pencil making enabled graphite of inferior quality to be used. This lowered the cost of pencils and made the product more accessible to the masses. The company Koh-i-Noor Hardtmuth is still manufacturing stationery.
13. Hasburgs Phoenix Gold
If you liked these vintage catalogue images, you would probably like the collections of vintage patent art on Pictureboxblue. And the watercolour illustrations of everyday objects in the Index of American Design.
Susie Jefferson
Saturday 15th of May 2021
Wonderful, thank you so much
claire
Sunday 16th of May 2021
Thank you, I thought the vintage catalog images were interesting to share.
Cecilia
Sunday 28th of June 2020
What great art graphics, Claire! Thanks for sharing at Vintage Charm! Pinned!
claire
Tuesday 30th of June 2020
Thank you, I think they would make lovely prints.
Ann
Sunday 28th of June 2020
These images a re beautiful! Thank you for sharing at Party In Your PJ's.
claire
Tuesday 30th of June 2020
Thank you, they were fun to compile.
angie
Thursday 25th of June 2020
very cool love finding out about the history of things and this is very cool thanks for sharing come see us at http://shopannies.blogspot.com
claire
Thursday 25th of June 2020
Thank you, glad you enjoyed them.