Code Universel des Couleurs

1936. SEGUY, Eugene Alain. Code Universel des Couleurs. Encyclopedie Pratique du Naturaliste XXX. lxviii pp. Illustrated with 55 plates showing 720 colours. 8vo, 154 x 169 mm, bound loose as issued in the original cloth portfolio. Paris: Paul Lechevalier, 1936. First Edition. A system of precise designation of colours for the exact and natural sciences. The format is interesting; it consists of 48 loose plates on stiff glossy paper stock each with 15 colours printed in "quadrichromie" (4 colour process) together with 7 masks of various colours for isolating individual colour samples against different colored backgrounds. The author was an official of the Museum National d'Histoire Naturelle and had previously been a miniature painter. This work is comparable to those of Dauthenay (q.v.) and Wilson (q.v.); all of them were attempts to establish standardization of colour nomenclature for naturalists. It would also appear to have been influenced by the Code des Couleurs of Klincksieck & Valette of 1908; it has exactly the same number of colours and more or less the same format. The present work is scarce; it is not in the Birren Collection nor any of the other references at hand.