Antoine Janot's 85 colours

An exceptional tool for designers and lovers of colours and natural dyes. A book committed to a sustainable future of colours.
  • Dominique Cardon, Les 85 couleurs d'Antoine Janot, Les Mots qui portent, 2025
  • Dominique Cardon, Les 85 couleurs d'Antoine Janot, Les Mots qui portent, 2025
  • Dominique Cardon, Les 85 couleurs d'Antoine Janot, Les Mots qui portent, 2025
  • Dominique Cardon, Les 85 couleurs d'Antoine Janot, Les Mots qui portent, 2025
  • Dominique Cardon, Les 85 couleurs d'Antoine Janot, Les Mots qui portent, 2025
  • Dominique Cardon, Les 85 couleurs d'Antoine Janot, Les Mots qui portent, 2025
  • Dominique Cardon, Les 85 couleurs d'Antoine Janot, Les Mots qui portent, 2025
  • Dominique Cardon, Les 85 couleurs d'Antoine Janot, Les Mots qui portent, 2025
  • Dominique Cardon, Les 85 couleurs d'Antoine Janot, Les Mots qui portent, 2025
  • Dominique Cardon, Les 85 couleurs d'Antoine Janot, Les Mots qui portent, 2025
  • Dominique Cardon, Les 85 couleurs d'Antoine Janot, Les Mots qui portent, 2025
  • Dominique Cardon, Les 85 couleurs d'Antoine Janot, Les Mots qui portent, 2025
  • Dominique Cardon, Les 85 couleurs d'Antoine Janot, Les Mots qui portent, 2025
  • Dominique Cardon, Les 85 couleurs d'Antoine Janot, Les Mots qui portent, 2025
  • Dominique Cardon, Les 85 couleurs d'Antoine Janot, Les Mots qui portent, 2025
  • Dominique Cardon, Les 85 couleurs d'Antoine Janot, Les Mots qui portent, 2025

More information in French HERE

In short

Crow’s wing, pomegranate flower, daffodil, emerald …  the rainbow of hundreds of colours dyed by Antoine Janot and his workers, year after year, on the fine wool broadcloths produced in the south of France for export to the Levant. Who was Antoine Janot? A master-dyer at work during the Age of Enlightenment, a “dodgy adventurer, as reckless, haughty and dangerous as he is masterful a dyer”.

This Workbook traces Janot’s life-long quest to create beautiful and fast colours. Tapping unexpected archive sources and combining experimental archaeology and colorimetry, it systematically explores his dyeing processes for colours obtained exclusively using natural colorants.

It brings a pioneering contribution to the history of colours and colour nomenclature. It provides an invaluable inspiration and practical tool in today’s search for alternatives to the ongoing mass pollution of our environment caused by synthetic fibres and colorants.

The authors

Dr Dominique Cardon is a historian and archaeologist studying the history of textiles and natural dyeing using a multidisciplinary approach. She is Emerita Director of Research at the French National Centre of Scientific Research (CNRS). She was awarded the CNRS Silver Medal in 2011 and the Turner Medal of the Colour Group (GB) in 2025.

Dr Iris Brémaud is Director of Research at the CNRS (LMGC unit in Montpellier). She specializes in wood science and explores the relationships between craft knowledge and the physical and aesthetic properties of plant matter, using colorimetry in the historical research on colours covered in this Workbook.

A word from the editor

Les Mots qui portent is proud to breathe new life into these ancient works devoted to natural and plant-based dyes. The 18th century manuscripts containing samples pass on unique expertise and offer today’s designers an exceptional source of inspiration. Preserving this cultural heritage means encouraging a review of our production methods in order to move away from synthetic dyes. Publishing Dominique Cardon’s research work means both protecting memory and craftsmanship and committing to a sustainable future for colours.

304 pages – More than 250 illustrations – 170 x240 mm – Price  :45 €

Available from 21st septembre 2025  – ISBN : 978-2494-830–165

The book is in French and in English. More information in French HERE.

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Presentation of the book

Drawing inspiration from the expertise of dyers of the past

This book is part of the same series of bilingual books, currently being published, as the book The 157 Colours of Paul Gout: the Cahiers/Workbooks Colours from the past for a greener world.

The aim of this series is to trace the evolution of the art of dyeing and colour creation using natural dyes over the two centuries preceding the triumph of synthetic dyes derived from coal tar and then petroleum.

The approach adopted is to give a voice to master dyers of the past who had in common the fact that they wrote detailed recipe books for all the colours they produced and, above all, were the only ones to illustrate the results with samples of dyed fabric.

The pioneering contribution of the authors of these Cahiers is to offer the conceptual tools and practical means to reclaim their knowledge and expertise and adapt them to the research and applications that are possible and necessary today.

The art of dyeing according to Antoine Janot

Antoine Janot was a master dyer who ran a large dyeing workshop in Saint-Chinian, in the Languedoc region, for much of the 18th century. He and his workers dyed the thousands of pieces of fine woollen cloth produced each year by the clothiers of this textile centre, which specialised in exports to the Levant.

This Workbook Antoine Janot’s 85 Colours draws on all of Antoine Janot’s writings and dyed fabric samples. In the series of these Workbooks, it presents the earliest form of natural dyeing, what might be called its classical age. For Antoine Janot’s work is, in part, an extraordinary illustration of the regulations on permanent dyeing, drawn up during the reign of Louis XIV by order of his minister Jean-Baptiste Colbert: they continued to be strictly applied in Janot’s time.

However, the range of colours presented here is much broader because Antoine Janot and his colleagues in Languedoc had to respond to the tastes and changing fashions of a clientele that was particularly sensitive to the beauty of colours, as well as demanding in terms of dye quality: the elites of the various countries of the vast Ottoman Empire.

Accurate reproduction of each colour

From a technical point of view, this Cahier presents, in a systematic, schematic form, precise recipes for reproducing the rainbow of colours produced by Antoine Janot and his workers: the different stages of his processes are clearly distinguished and the proportions of ingredients are given in relation to the weight of dry fabric to be dyed.

Colorimetry applied to 18th century samples

This Cahier moreover offers the means to verify the accuracy of each reproduction. This is the unique and original contribution of the use of colorimetry, common to the Cahiers/Workbooks series. All samples were measured using a spectrophotometer and the colorimetric characteristics of Janot’s 85 dye samples are published here exclusively, according to the international CIE(L*a*b*) system proposed in 1976 by the International Commission on Illumination.

An exceptional contribution: the same colour reproduced by different dyers

The DE 2000 values for colour differences between Janot’s dye samples and samples identified by the same colour names but dyed by several other contemporary dyers, both from Languedoc and their London competitors, have also been calculated and published for the first time. These comparisons shed completely new light on the extraordinary expertise of the dyers of the past, who faced the challenge of reproducing dyes made from natural colourants.

Untapped archival documents

From a historical perspective, extensive use of archival documents preserving Janot’s work allows us to closely follow the ups and downs of his professional career, buffeted by the succession of political, economic and social issues faced by master dyers working to export textiles to the Levant.

Natural dyes to stop damaging our planet

In the current context of the urgent need for a paradigm shift in our production systems, particularly in the field of textiles and dyes, this book aims to be a source of inspiration and an efficient tool for experimenting with alternatives to the massive pollution of our environments by synthetic fibres and dyes.

Les auteures

Historian and archaeologist, Dominique Cardon studies textiles and their dyeing with natural dyes in a transdisciplinary approach. She is director of research at the CNRS (CIHAM, Lyon). She was awarded the silver medal of the CNRS in 2011.

The series of bilingual workbooks Colours from the past for a greener world is co-authored with Iris Brémaud, a researcher in wood science. She explores the links between craft  knowledge and plant resources, in this case by means of colorimetry. She is a research fellow at the CNRS (LMGC, Montpellier).

More words and pictures about the authors HERE.

Other publications in English

  • Reference books on natural dyes

Natural Dyes. Sources, tradition, technology and science (Archetype, 2007).

  • On 18th century dyers and their colours

The Dyer’s Handbook – Memoirs of an 18th century Master Colourist (Oxbow books, 2016, 2020).

Workbook, Antoine Janot’s Colours (CNRS, 2020).

Paul Gout’s 157 Colours (Vieilles Racines et Jeunes Pousses, 2022).

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    Our partners

    The publication of this book has been made possible thanks to the support of our partners, underlining and recognising the impressive work carried out by Dominique Cardon, which benefits all the actors in the ecosystem of textiles and their dyes using natural dyes. We warmly thank the people and companies for their trust.

    Hermès

    Mindful of know-how and of the transmission of skills, the house of Hermès has supported this publication.

    Green’Ing

    Antoine Janot is one of the rare dyers of the 18th century whose notebooks and swatches allow us to appreciate the magnificence of colors, the control of processes, size of productions and economic aspects of the color industry at that period. GREEN’ING manufactures its natural colors a few kilometers from Janot’s old factories in the South of France and relies on this historical know-how to innovate for virtuous productions. Antoine Janot was hired to create the first dyehouse in Bédarieux, our city. Therefore, we are very happy to collaborate and contribute to the diffusion of researches of Dominique and Iris. Our activity is conceived as a hyphen in natural color towards the future. No doubt that this book will bring important pieces for inspiration, design of color and sustainable textiles to the service of our planet.

    Kremer Pigmente

    Kremer Pigments has been an international supplier to artists, restorers and color researchers for over forty-five years. The company also supplies raw materials for dyeing and for research into historical recipes. Antoine Janot’s recipes enable dyeing according to historical recipes using the original dyes.

    Ville de Carcassonne

    The city of Carcassonne, in partnership with its municipal tourist office, keen to promote the local cloth-making heritage to the highest standards, naturally turned to Dominique Cardon, a renowned specialist in natural dyeing. Her expertise has enabled the creation of high-quality educational facilities rooted in Carcassonne’s history and expertise: the Carcassonne wool and cloth house and an exhibition entitled From Plant to Color.This book enthusiastically continues this partnership by paying tribute to the remarkable expertise of Carcassonne’s dyers.

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