Véritable Extrait de Viande Liebig. Les Phases de la Fabrication d’un Chromo Liebig [Paris?, ca. 1906]. Chromolithograph trade cards.

 

The contemporary definition of a chromolithograph often varies. Typically, a chromolithograph is defined as a color-printed lithograph in which the image is composed of at least three colors, each applied from a separate stone. Nineteenth-century chromolithographers used registration marks and a color bar in the margins of each stone to line up and order the colors to form the image. The earliest in the United States date from the 1840s. By the 1870s, trade cards, other forms of advertisements, and parlor prints were mainly chromolithographs. Note that the trade cards on display here depict the printing process, which usually entailed between eight and sixteen stones.

 

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