From Antiquity, artists, artisans, craftsmen and even scholars have transmitted and recorded their knowledge of artistic materials and practices within a specific sort of writing : artist recipe books.
These books are presented under the form of lists of art-technological instructions providing information on various artistic disciplines, such as drawing, painting, frescos, illumination, gilding, etching, but also dyeing, metal and glass working, amongst others.
The Colour ConText database allows the consultation and exploitation of more than 1000 of these texts.