Chapter Five
The Orient and the dawn of Western industrialization: Armenian calico
printers from Constantinople in Marseilles (1669-1686)
Olivier Raveux
CNRS
UMR TELEMME, Aix-Marseille university
This research seeks to meet two objectives. First, it will analyze the
dynamics involved in the movement of persons, products and techniques
between East and West in the cotton textile sector during the early modern
period.1 To achieve this objective, I have combined two methods using two
different levels of observation. The first is micro-history. I have studied a small
group of men in a specific place and time: Armenian calico printers from
Constantinople who came to work in Marseilles during the period 1669-1686.
The second method is an incursion into connected history. In examining the
careers of Asian craftsmen in Europe, this article will analyse the
confrontation of men from different cultural backgrounds and the impact of
this confrontation on the economies in two continents. What is the reason for
combining these two methods? Micro-history allows us to examine as closely
as possible ‘contact situations’ involving actors from societies that are
geographically and culturally different. The study of these interactions
constitutes one of the major objectives of connected history, since it allows us
to re-establish the significance of intercontinental connections, which are
often at best underestimated, and at worst ignored, due to linguistic, cultural
1
I would like to thank Gilbert Buti, Liliane Pérez and Giorgio Riello for their helpful
suggestions of improvement.
1
or political, or indeed institutional, compartimentalization based on academic
disciplines.
The second ambition for this research is linked to its aim. The decision
to study the career of Asian calico printers in Marseilles made it possible to
see the roots of European industrialization from a different perspective and
analyze the early signs of consumption and production of its first emblematic
product, printed calico.2 More specifically, the idea is not merely to
understand how the West adopted the products, craftsmen and technologies
of the Oriental calico printing industry, but also, and perhaps more
importantly, to figure out how the East became involved in the economic and
social transformation of Western society through its key role in the trade and
manufacture of printed cottons in Europe during the last third of the
Seventeenth Century. This innovative approach will not draw on documents in
non-European languages. I do not have the skills for this type of analysis and,
at this point, it seems paradoxical to take a non-European-centric view while
referring to documentation which comes from European sources. I realise that
my research is incomplete and that I should undertake a search for further
information from the archives of the Ottoman Empire. This article should
therefore be seen as an incomplete contribution to a vision of the origins of
the European industrial revolution from an intercontinental perspective.
Following a succinct presentation of the small group of individuals I
have chosen to study, this article will examine two major elements in this offcentred analysis of the dawn of European industrialization, focusing first of all
on the role of Eastern merchants in the development of a market in printed
2
Patrick Verley, L'Échelle du monde. Essai sur l'industrialisation occidentale (Paris:
Gallimard, 1997), 160-179; Giorgio Riello and Prasannan Parthasarathi (eds.), The
Spinning World: A Global History of Cotton Textile, 1200-1850 (Oxford: Oxford
University Press, 2009); Beverly Lemire, Cotton (Oxford-New York: Berg, 2011).
2
cottons in Europe and on the contribution made by Eastern craftsmen in the
early days of the Western calico printing industry. Finally, this article will focus
on how technology is transferred over the long term as a result of the
transmission of consumer habits and the movement of craftsmen between
two continents.
At the crossroads of two Eurasian circulations
How large is the group of Armenian calico printers who left
Constantinople for Marseilles in the late Seventeenth Century? Four, for sure,
maybe five to seven in all.3 This study will concentrate on those for whom we
have sufficient information to follow their movements with a certain degree
of certitude: Dominique Ellia, Georges Martin, Boudac and Serquis de Martin.
What was the period of their presence in Marseilles? The first to arrive was
Dominique Ellia, around 1669.4 Boudac joined him two years later. Georges
Martin arrived in 1672 and Serquis de Martin in 1675. 5 Only one of these was
still living in Marseilles in 1686: Georges Martin. His three colleagues had
already left Marseilles at least three years previously. Did they return to the
Ottoman Empire? We have no information on their next destination.
Armenian calico printers belonged to a group of itinerant craftsmen whose
movements are difficult to follow as they travelled from East to West within
the Mediterranean basin.
3
There is no clear information on three other persons, the master calico printer
Joseph Simon and two workers Grégoire de Constantin and Jacques Mekhitar. For a
complete list of Armenians involved in the production and commerce of printed
calicoes in Marseilles, see Table 1.
4
While still in Constantinople, Dominique Ellia had wanted to become a priest before
turning to calico printing. Archives départementales des Bouches-du-Rhône
(hereafter AD13), 356 E 455, fol.172 v°.
5
AD13, 357 E 163, fol.905, 906, 1.257 and 1.257 v°; Parish records of Marseilles, Les
Accoules, marriages, May 11 1680.
3
Table 1: Main Armenians involved in trade and production of printed calicoes
in Marseilles in the late 17th century
Name
Native from
Profession
Documented
period
Originating from Isfahan
Bogous de Acoub
New Julfa
Merchant
1677-1686
New Julfa
Merchant
1674-1695
New Julfa
Merchant
1684-1693
Melchion de Nazar
New Julfa
Merchant
1660-1694
Raphaël Ruply
New Julfa
Merchant
1675-1677
Grégoire de
Arabet
Grégoire de
Constans
4
Sarougan de
George
Zacharie de
Georges
New Julfa
Merchant
1678-1681
New Julfa
Merchant
1672-1695
Paul de Serquis
New Julfa
Serquis de Jean
New Julfa
Merchant and
manufacturer
Merchant and
manufacturer
1673-1694
1673-1681
Originating from Greater Armenia. Districts of Guegharkounik, Goghtn,
Erndjak and Nakhitchévan
Petrous de
Agulis
Merchant
1677-1681
Nascib de Grégoire
Agulis
Merchant
1675-1677
Thorous de Piron
Astabat
Merchant
1674-1690
Aghanaly
5
Bogous de Anat
Marcara de
Garubian
Jacob de Mirza
Shorot
Merchant
1683-1689
Shorot
Merchant
1680-1693
Yerevan
Merchant
1675-1679
Originating from Ottoman Empire
Chain de Amiras
Trabzon
Merchant
1684-1695
Jean de Chéliby
Trabzon
Merchant
1684-1695
Minas Thorous
Kaisery
Merchant
1668-1686
Mirza de Simon
?
Merchant
1673-1675
Paul Alexandre
?
Merchant
1680-1683
6
Arapié d’Arakel
Serquis de Martin
Merchant and
Smyrna
Constantino
ple
manufacturer
1669-1672
Master-craftsman
1675-1680
Dominique Ellia
?
Master-craftsman
1669-1683
Joseph Simon
Jerusalem
Master-craftsman
1675-1679
Georges Martin
Malatya
Boudac
?
Master-craftsman
1672
?
Printer
1672
?
Printer
1672
Grégoire de
Constantin
Jacques Mekhitar
Printer and after Mastercraftsman
7
1672-1691
Sources: AD13. Parish ledgers and notarial acts of Marseilles (1666-1695). We
have preserved the orthographies of the Armenian names as they were found
in the documents.
In Marseilles, these craftsmens’ careers followed a fairly predictable
path. Whether they arrived as master craftsmen or as simple workers, they
initially worked only with other Armenians. Later, as they became more
integrated into local society, they went into partnership with Marseilles
manufacturers, often on the same footing by developing joint business
activities.6 The value of their technical skills was such that, although they
contributed less to the initial capital and were not required to provide
premises, they were entitled to their fair share of the future profits.7 Another
aspect of this group of four craftsmen is the range of their activities: even if
these calico printers sometimes sold their own products, they were not
involved in retail sales and appear for the most part to concentrate on
meeting customized orders, firstly from Armenian merchants, and later from
Marseilles’ merchants and shopkeepers.8 The predictable development of
their career in the city nevertheless carried the hallmark of intercontinental
mobility of the early modern period.
The presence of these Armenian calico printers from Constantinople in
Marseilles was in fact linked to two major migrations between Europe and
6
For example: Dominique Ellia’s business with Hugues Grand, Boudac with Antoine
Desuargues and Claude Picard, and Georges Martin with Antoine Vian and later with
Jean-Pierre Salindre. AD13, 355 E 452, fol.485; 366 E 213, fol.236; 367 E 161,
fol.2.551 and 394 E 28, fol.95.
7
Similar situations existed for other Armenian manufacturers. Thus, in August 1679,
Joseph Simon went into business with the Marseillais Antoine Desuargues. Purchases
and profits were shared 50/50 but Desuargues provided the workshop. AD13, 351 E
998, fol.1.360.
8
With the larger local merchants, including Guion, Blain and Nogaret, and the city’s
main shopkeepers in printed calicoes, including Rode, Germain, Bellière and
Montagne. AD13, 13 B 44, fol.387 v°; 355 E 452, fol.483 v° and 355 E 453, fol.24.
8
Asia during the Seventeenth Century. The first migration involved Armenian
merchants who settled throughout the Eurasian continent in order to
participate in the international market in raw materials and luxury products
(mirrors, watches, coral, silk, diamonds and printed calicoes). Their success
was due largely to the fact that they were Eastern Christians and that they
could easily act as intermediaries between East and West. It was also the
result of having efficient networks of solidarity that drew on a three-fold
sense of belonging: the family, their homeland, and the Armenian community.
They constituted three separate groups (see Table 1): the most famous being
the Armenians’ merchant network par excellence from New Julfa, in the city
of Esfahan;9 members of the second group originally came from Greater
Armenia, most of whom had settled in Persia during the 17 th century; the
members of the third group, the most heteroclite, were subjects of the
Ottoman Empire.
Arapié d’Arachel belonged to this last group. Originally from Smyrna,
he was a merchant who persuaded the first Armenian calico printer,
Dominique Ellia, to come to Marseilles in 1669.10 This was a significant date: in
this year the Édit d’affranchissement was awarded to the port of Marseilles
and this led to a growing number of Armenians in the city. This Edict
contained a series of measures which would, according to Colbert, re-launch
trade with the Levant via Marseilles and make it easier for foreign merchants
to become ‘naturalized French’, thus exempting their commercial activities
9
On this network, see Sebouh Aslanian, From the Indian Ocean to the
Mediterranean: Circulation and the Global Trade Networks of American Merchants
from New Julfa, Isfahan, 1605-1747 (Berkeley: The University of California Press,
2011); Olivier Raveux, ‘Entre réseau communautaire intercontinental et intégration
locale: la colonie marseillaise des marchands arméniens de la Nouvelle-Djoulfa
(Ispahan), 1669-1695’, Revue d’Histoire Moderne et Contemporaine, 59-1 (2012),
pp.81-100.
10
AD13, 357 E 163, fol.905, 906, 1.257 and 1.257 v°.
9
from heavy taxes. They had merely to marry a local woman, a step taken by
Serquis de Martin in 1680.11 It appears that Dominique Ellia was also
considering this option in 1683, as he obtained a certificate of ‘catholicity’ and
celibacy from a notary.12 However, he may not have taken the next step, as
there are no traces of his presence in Marseilles after 1683. This is in fact
another symbolic date: Colbert died in 1683 and Armenian calico printers in
Provence found themselves in a delicate situation, especially after 1686, when
painted and printed cottons were banned in the Kingdom of France. The
death of the minister who encouraged Armenian trade and the end of calico
printing sealed the fate of this little group of Eastern calico printers in
Marseilles.13
The second international circulation in calico printing in which
Armenian calico printers in Marseilles contributed was the transfer of Asian
techniques in cotton printing and dyeing to Europe. Numerous studies have
documented the spread of calico printing methods from India to Persia,
Armenia and Anatolia. We do not know exactly how and when these
techniques were transferred, but two key elements have been identified.
14
First, Armenian craftsmen played an important role and, second,
Constantinople was one of the principal centres for Ottoman calico printing
during the second half of the Seventeenth Century with workshops located in
Unkapanı, a neighbourhood on the southern bank of the Golden Horn, where
11
AD13, Parish records of Marseilles, Les Accoules, marriages, May 11 1680.
AD13 356 E 455, fol.172 v°.
13
All traces of Georges Martin, the last of these Armenians, disappear in 1689, the
date that 1686 bans on printed cotton came into force in Marseilles.
14
Katsumi Fukasawa, Toilerie et commerce du Levant d'Alep à Marseille (Marseille:
CNRS éditions, 1987), 43.
12
10
there was a large community of Armenians.15 These Armenian calico printers
were not necessarily born in the Ottoman Empire’s capital city: Serquis de
Martin certainly was, but were the others? We have no information for
Boudac and Dominique Ellia, but Georges Martin was born in Malatya.16 Many
Armenian craftsmen in Constantinople during this period came from towns in
central and eastern Anatolia (Sivas, Tocat, Diyarbakir) which were centres for
calico printing with substantial populations of Armenians, many of whom
moved to the Empire’s other cities, whether to the capital for its access to
local markets, or to Aleppo and Smyrna which were major cities for exports to
Europe.17
The propagation of Eastern techniques for printing calicoes reached
Europe during the last third of the Seventeenth Century: Marseilles in 1669,
Holland and in particular Amersfoort in 1678, Genoa in 1690 and perhaps
Livorno and Tuscany during the 1680s. The arrival of Armenian manufacturers
and workers allowed these cities to use Eastern methods for dyeing on cotton
fabrics with fast colours.18 The success of printed calicoes, which became
fashionable in Europe at this precise moment, can be attributed in large part
to the presence of these Eastern craftsmen.
15
Robert Mantran, Istanbul dans la seconde moitié du XVIIe siècle. Essai d’histoire
institutionnelle, économique et sociale (Paris: librairie Maisonneuve, 1962), 52, 419,
maps 11 and 14.
16
AD13, 367 E 161, fol.2.573.
17
H. Kurdian, ‘Armenian woodcuts’, The Print Collector’s Quarterly (1940), p.79.
18
Giorgio Riello, ‘Asian Knowledge and the Development of Calico Printing in Europe
in the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries’, Journal of Global History, 5 (2010), 128; Ernest Homburg, ‘From colour maker to chemist: episodes from the rise of the
colourist, 1670-1800’ in Robert Fox and Agustí Nieto Gálan (eds.), Natural Dyestuffs
and Industrial Culture in Europe, 1750-1880 (Canton: Watson Publishing Group,
1999), 221; Orietta Spirito, Voiles de Gênes (Mulhouse: Musée de l’impression sur
étoffe, 1964), 4; Frédéric Macler, ‘Notes de Chahan de Cirbied sur les Arméniens
d’Amsterdam et de Livourne, publiées par Frédéric Macler’, Anahit, janv.-fév.
1904), 11.
11
Growth and construction of a European market in printed calicoes
An analysis of probate inventories provides clear evidence of this
phenomenon: in Marseilles during the years 1667-1692, the market for
printed calicoes grew and spread to all classes (see table 2). In less than three
decades, printed calico was a major product in the local material culture in
furnishings and clothing. This was similar to a European-wide trend, as can be
seen in the figures for imports of Indian printed cottons by the British, French
and Dutch East India companies. The number of these companies increased
almost fivefold over the same period (see table 3). With the arrival of these
fabrics, which “became an avalanche”,19 and also increasing imports of
Persian and Ottoman imitations often of inferior quality, printed calico was
now available in Europe in a very wide range of patterns and types that were
attracting customers from all social classes from craftsmen to elite groups.20
Table 2: Printed calicoes for furnishing and garments in the probate
inventories with textiles of Marseilles (1667-1693)
19
Michel Morineau, ‘Le défi indien, XVIIe et XVIIIe siècles’, Bulletin de l’École française
d’Extrême-Orient, 82-1 (1995),p.27.
20
Maxine Berg, ‘Manufacturing the Orient. Asian Commodities and European Industry, 15001800’ in Simona Cavaciocchi (ed.), Prodotti e tecniche d’oltremare nelle economie europee,
secc. XIII-XVIII (Firenze: Le Monnier, 1998),p.385.
12
Numbers of
Inventories
percentage
Inventories
percentag
inventories
with calicoes
compared
with calicoes
e
with textiles
for furnishing to the total for garments
compared
to the
total
16671668
16801681
16921693
135
70
51,85
7
5,19
112
77
68,75
27
24,11
178
133
74,72
74
41,58
Sources: AD13, 2 B 803-807 (sénéchaussée of Marseilles, inventories). First
period: from 1st January 1667 to 17th February 1667 and from 11th November
1667 to 31st.December 1668. Second period: from 1st January 1680 to 4th
March 1681. The third and last period: from 1st January 1692 to 1st August
1693.
13
Table 3: Numbers of Indian cotton pieces exported to Europe by East Indies
Companies. Annual average (1665-1684)
England
Holland
1665-1669
139,700
126,600
1670-1674
510,500
257,900
France
Total
-
265,700
808,400
50,000 *
1675-1679
580,900
127,500
1680-1684
973,800
226,800
758,400
100,000 **
1,299,800
* Covers the period 1670-1680. ** Covers the period 1680-1685. Sources:
Giorgio Riello, ‘The Globalisation of Cotton Textiles: Indian Cottons, Europe
and the Atlantic World, 1600-1850’ in Riello and Parthasarathi, The Spinning
World, 261-287; Philippe Haudrère, ‘Naissance du goût de l’Inde en Europe
(XVIe-XVIIIe siècles)’ in Gérard Le Bouëdec and Brigitte Nicolas (eds.), Le Goût
de l’Inde (Rennes: PUR-Musée de la Compagnies des Indes, 2008), 8-17.
Until the 1660s, printed calicoes had difficulty finding a place in the
European textile market. Asian cottons were certainly attractive because of
their intrinsic qualities, the solidity of their colours and fairly low price, but
14
they were somewhat snubbed by Westerners, mainly because of the rather
dark backgrounds and patterns that were thought to be too ‘exotic’.21 The
situation changed radically during the last third of the Seventeenth Century,
thanks to the East India companies’ campaigns to adapt Asian products to
European tastes. In particular, the English East India Company sent samples
for copying in India and British craftsmen who could train Indian printers to
produce fabrics for Western consumers.22 In other words, Europeans were
deliberately developing a dynamic consumer market for printed calicoes in
Europe. The attitude of Marseilles agents in the Levant seems to confirm this
interpretation of the situation: an agent decided to establish a factory for
printed calicoes in Smyrna during the 1680s explicitly to produce fabrics with
white backgrounds and elegant designs for export to Marseilles in line with
European customers’ tastes.23
Did this market develop only through the hands of
European
merchants and companies? The history of Armenian calico printers from
Constantinople in Marseilles allows us to go further in our analysis of this
Euro-centric approach and to reveal Asia’s contribution to the development of
a European market in printed calicoes. Dominique Ellia, Boudac de Martin,
21
John Irwin, ‘Origins of the ‘Oriental Style’ in English Decorative Art’, The Burlington
Magazine, 625 (1955), 109 and ‘Indian Textile trade in the Seventeenth Century: IV
Foreign Influences’, Journal of Indian Textile History, IV (1959), 57; Giorgio Riello,
‘The Indian Apprenticeship: The Trade of Indian Textiles and the Making of
Europeans Cottons’, in Giorgio Riello and Roy Tirthankar (eds.), How India Cothed the
World: Cotton Textiles and the Indian Ocean, 1500-1850 (Leiden: Brill, 2009), pp.337340.
22
John Styles, ‘Product Innovation in Early Modern London’, Past and Present, 168
(2000), 133; Archives Nationales d’Outre-Mer, C 2 193, Letter to the directors of the
French East India Company, April 7 1686.
23
This was Pierre Chaulier. With regard to the preference of Marseillais and more
broadly of Europeans for printed calico on a white background, see correspondence
between the Rampal company and Tiran of Smyrna in the 1670s. AD13, 9 B 175,
letters of April 29 and July 21, 1679; Jacques Savary des Bruslons, Dictionnaire
universel de commerce (Paris: J. Estienne, 1723-1730), t. III, 1730, p.607.
15
and later Georges Martin were encouraged to come to Marseilles by an
Armenian merchant from Smyrna, Arapié d’Arachel, with whom they had
worked until 1672. Thus the presence of Armenian workshops for printed
calicoes in Marseilles can be seen as an Asian trading strategy. In Asia,
Armenian merchants had already helped to set up calico workshops in the
main cities where they were operating. In order to sell more marketable
products for Persian, Ottoman and European markets, the Armenians from
New Julfa imported white fabrics from India to Isfahan and had them printed
by local craftsmen according to precise specifications that corresponded to
their clients’ tastes.24 These merchants located in Persia then extended their
business as manufacturers to other regions where they achieved some
success, particularly in several areas of Mughal India since the 1630s at the
earliest.25
The installation of several Armenian workshops in Marseilles was the
next logical step in the transfer of calico production from East to West,
initiated in Asia and entering Europe. Armenian merchants in Marseilles were
looking for the same opportunities for profit margins as their colleagues in
Persia and India: shortening the distance to market and reducing the time
required to transfer information on customers’ tastes and expectations to
factories in order to adapt production as quickly as possible. Like the major
European East Indies companies, the Armenians did not limit their business to
making a profit on higher sales of printed calicoes in Europe. They also
24
Bibliothèque Nationale de France (hereafter BNF), ms fr. 7.174, Mémoire de Mr
d’Ortières touchant les Échelles du Levant, Aleppo, 1686, fol.460.
25
For custom trade, they used craftsmen from Ahmedabad (Gujarat region), Sironj
(Malwa region) and the Coromandel Coast for exports to Persia, the Ottoman Empire
and Europe. BNF, ms fr. 14.614. « Rapport du sieur Roques de la Royale Cie française
des Indes orientales » (1676-1678), fol.16; Abbé G. T. F. Raynal, Histoire
philosophiques et politique des établissemens et du commerce des Européens dans les
deux Indes (La Haye: Gosse fils 1776), I, 425.
16
wanted to encourage the development of this market by their participation in
transforming Asian merchandise which had previously had difficulty entering
the European market.
Armenian calico printers in Europe did not compete directly with the
East Indian companies. On the contrary, their business activities were in fact
complementary. The East India companies were involved in selling luxury
Indian cotton fabrics mostly to wealthy European consumers. In Marseilles,
Armenian calico printers were more interested in producing printed calicoes
of lower quality and fairly simple designs26 and their fabrics had to compete
locally with goods brought from the Ottoman Empire. The first market to be
affected by the inter-continental competition in the manufacture of printed
calicoes was the niche section for average or low quality cottons in Europe.27
The positioning of the Armenian calico printers of Marseilles was achieved
first because the products were cheap and transport costs were high. It was
obviously more profitable to produce printed calicoes and set up workshops
as close as possible to the consumers and to the market. It was a question of
balancing transaction costs with the nature and value of the merchandise
offered for sale. Second, it was impossible for producers from Europe, the
Ottoman Empire or Persia to enter the market for high-quality printed
cottons. Labour costs and high-level technical fabrication made it difficult for
any manufacturer from these regions to compete with the major centres of
production in Gujarat, the Coromandel Coast and Bengal.
26
They worked on ‘boucassins’ from Smyrna, ‘boutanes’ from Cyprus and fabrics
from Jerusalem for making printed calicoes in one or two colours (see figure 1).
27
This situation is quite different from the process of industrialization in the
European calico sector during the 18th century which occurred as part of the
competition with Asia with regard to product quality; Maxine Berg, ‘Quality, Cotton
and the Global Luxury Trade’ in Riello and Tirthankar, How India Cothed the World,
pp.261-287.
17
Figure 1: Cotton fabric with floral prints from the 17 th century (Anatolia,
Kurdistan or Armenia) (lining of an Armenian bound manuscript)
Source: Matenadaran (Yerevan), with thanks to Director Hrachya Tamrazyan
for permission to publish this image.
Transfer of Turkey red techniques, or what the West learnt from the East
Growing consumption of printed calicoes in Europe and the Western
Mediterranean countries was thus the reason for the presence of Armenian
craftsmen in Marseilles. However, this does not explain why they were so
successful, since they were competing in a well-established sector in the
city.28 They did have one important advantage: they had experts in the so-
28
First evidence of calico printing in Marseilles dates back to 1648. See Hyacinthe
Chobaut, ‘L'industrie des indiennes à Marseille avant 1680’, Mémoires de l'Institut
Historique de Provence, XVI (1939), 81-95; Olivier Raveux, ‘The Birth of a New
European Industry: l’indiennage in Seventeenth-Century Marseilles’ in Riello and
Parthasarathi, The Spinning World, pp.291-306.
18
called ‘kitchen of colours’ that local craftsmen did not know and in particular
in the mastery of madder red dye.
Turkey red was a technique involving a vivid and changing set of skills
for dyeing with madder and alum which had come from India and been
adapted several times by craftsmen in the territories through which it had
passed.29 The history of the Armenian calico printers in Marseilles offers us an
opportunity to understand the complex history of this technique, the
development of dyeing procedures, and its arrival in Europe. The introduction
of Turkey red was particularly significant, since it was one of the key elements
in the emancipation of Western technology in the cotton industry.
What is this Turkey red dye that Seventeenth Century Armenian
craftsmen were so skilled in using? Information on this technique can be
found in an article by a Russian German-born naturalist, Peter Simon Pallas,
who visited a workshop for dyeing cotton yarns in the 1770s in Astrakhan, a
town that had welcomed Armenian refugees from Persia after 1747.30 This
technique involved three major steps. First, to ensure the solidity of the
colour on the cotton fibres, fish oil was used during the scouring phase. Then,
calves’ or sheep’s blood was added to the vats containing the madder to make
the red more homogenous. Finally, seawater was used in rinsing the fabrics in
order to give tone to the colour and to wash the cotton.31
29
Liliane Pérez and Catherine Verna, ‘La circulation des savoirs techniques du Moyen
Âge à l’époque moderne. Nouvelles approches et enjeux méthodologiques’, Tracés,
16 (2009), p.35.
30
Emigration began after the sack of Esfahan by the Afghans in 1722 and increased
with the violent policy of Nadir Shah in 1746-1747. See Aslanian, From the Indian
Ocean to the Mediterranean, chap. 8.
31
During the 1670s, Serquis de Martin and Dominique Ellia worked for a while in the
Arenc district, near Marseilles’ abattoirs, and their hanging areas were located very
near to the shore. AD13, 351 E 993, fol.2.015 and 355 E 453, fol.24.
19
Table 4: Turkey red techniques used by Armenians and Greeks in the 18 th
century
Armenian refugees from
Greeks from Thessaly (1797)
Persia in Astrakhan (c.
1770)
Scouring and
Fish oil mixed with an
oiling
alkaline solution (soda)
Boiled soda solution
Soda and sheep’s droppings
Treated with olive oil
Galling
Crushed gall nuts
Crushed gall nuts or sumac
baths
Mordanting
Alun and soda solution
Alun and soda solution
Madder and calves’ or
Madder and cow’s or
sheep’s blood
sheep’s blood
(aluming)
Maddering
20
Brightening
Digestion in a soda bath
Boiled alkaline solution with
soda and soap
Rinsing
Sea water
River water
Sources: Charles O’Neill, ‘Armenian Process for Turkey Red’ in The Textile
Colourist (Manchester, 1876), 219; Théodore Château, Étude historique et
chimique pour servir à l'histoire de la fabrication du rouge turc ou
d'Andrinople et à la théorie de cette teinture (Paris, 1876), 39; Félix Beaujour,
Tableau du commerce de la Grèce (Paris: Renouard, 1800), t. I, 261.
Until the 1670s, European craftsmen were unable to work correctly
with Turkey red on cottons. As a result, calico printing was not common in
Europe and substitutes for Asian products were usually of very mediocre
quality.32 The arrival of Armenian craftsmen changed this situation because
they brought with them the techniques needed for use of these dyes. Thus,
during Colbert’s ministry, Dominique Ellia, Georges Martin, Boudac and
Serquis de Martin were actively contributing to the widespread use of Turkey
red in Provence. According to documentation available today, Dominique Ellia
could be seen as a pioneer in this migration of men and techniques, not only
in Marseilles, but in the whole of Europe. During the 1670s, he introduced
Eastern techniques for printing and dyeing cottons through his business
connections with local calico printers and the recruitment of workers and
apprentices whom he agreed to teach how “to paint the calicoes using the
32
Riello, ‘Asian Knowledge’.
21
colours and methods from the Levant […] in his power without hiding anything
from him”.33
Transmission of these techniques was not limited to Marseilles.
Armenian calico printers in this city also contributed to transferring the recipe
for Turkey red to other towns in Southern France and Italy. Many documents
demonstrate that Marseilles-trained calico-printing workers took their skills to
Arles, Nîmes, Avignon and to Tuscany, Genoa, the Papal States and perhaps
even to Holland.34 Many of them had worked with the Armenian craftsmen or
were trained directly or indirectly by them. For example, Pierre Salindre was
trained in Marseille by Georges Martin and later by Serquis de Martin during
the 1670s and then set up his own workshop in Arles during the 1680s.35
Transmission of Turkey red to Europeans by Armenians during the last
third of the Seventeenth Century was merely the first step in a long process.
The adoption of madder red by Europeans coincided with another key phase
during the second half of the Eighteenth Century, when Greek craftsmen from
Thessaly, Macedonia, Thrace and Asia Minor were brought to France, the
Austro-Hungarian Empire and Great Britain because of their skill in colouring
techniques known as Andrinople red, a bright red dye which was particularly
prized by Europeans.36 Was this technique so complex that it had to be
33
This quotation comes from the apprenticeship contract signed by Dominique Ellia
and Léonard Bonet in November 1677. AD13, 392 E 102, fol.1.214. We find similar
terms in partnerships between local masters in calico printing. Thus, during the
creation of the company that links him to Hugues Grand in 1679, Dominique Ellia
promised his partner “to teach him his secret for painting calicoes as they are painted
in the Levant [...] without making mystery”. AD13, 355 E 452, fol.485.
34
Raveux, ‘The Birth of a New European Industry’.
35
AD13, 366 E 213, fol.236; Albert Puech, ‘Les Nîmois dans la seconde moitié du XVIIe
siècle’, Mémoires de l’Académie de Nîmes, X (1887), p.134.
36
Between 1746 and the 1780s, dyeing methods using ‘rouge d’Andrinople’ spread
widely throughout France (Aix-en-Provence, Aubenas, Darnetal, Marseilles,
Montpellier and Saint-Chamond), Alsace, England (Manchester), and the Austro-
22
imported several times? Even though the success of Turkey red in European
workshops could have been limited by the numerous ingredients, the long
series of procedures and the very empirical nature of its use, the response is
in fact negative. Are we in fact really talking about the same red? Is the
Andrinople red used by Greeks the same dye as the Turkey red used by
Armenians?
Andrinople red seems to have been one of the many shades of Turkey
red. Until the mid-seventeenth century, dyes using madder were the
prerogative of several towns in Asia Minor, including Diyarbakir and in
particular Smyrna, where Greeks and Armenians were the principal
craftsmen.37 After 1650, Greek artisans from Smyrna emigrated to Thessaly
and Thrace and improved the recipe for Turkey red. After visiting workshops
in Ampelakia at the end of the Eighteenth Century, Baron Felix Beaujour,
France’s Consul General in Greece, observed that the Greeks in Thessaly had
introduced two major changes in this method of dying: local olive oil replaced
fish oil and the final phase for brightening was revised and transformed.
These changes contributed to the vividness so characteristic of Andrinople
Hungarrian Empire (Vienna and Trieste) in the cotton yarn industry. See Albert
Musson and Eric Robinson, ‘Chemical Developments in Dyeing’ in Science and
Technology in the Industrial Revolution, London: Routledge, 1969), 344; Liliane
Hilaire-Pérez, ‘Cultures techniques et pratiques de l’échange entre Lyon et le Levant :
inventions et réseaux au XVIIIe siècle’, Revue d’Histoire Moderne et Contemporaine,
49/1 (2002), 89-114; Olga Katsiardi-Hering, ‘The Allure of Red Cotton Yarn, and How
it Came to Vienna: Associations of Greek artisans and merchants operating between
the Ottoman and Habsburg Empires’ in Suraiya Faroqhi and Gilles Veinstein (eds),
Merchants in the Ottoman Empire (Louvain: Peeters, 2008), pp.97-131.
37
Angélique Kinini, ‘La fabrication du rouge turc dans la Thessalie de la fin du XVIIIe
siècle : les manufactures de la ville d’Ampélakia’ in Fox and Nieto Gálan, Natural
Dyestuffs, 71-98.
71. In the early 18th century, Jacques Savary des Bruslons still referred to the
presence in Smyrna of ‘Greek and Armenian masters’ who worked in calico printing,
in particular for the European market. Savary des Bruslons, Dictionnaire universel,
t. III, p.607.
23
red.38 We can see here how techniques, after their transfer, were altered and
reinterpreted in response to local difficulties and resources. This is a fine
example of the process of technical hybridization, as a result of transmission
and ‘creative imitation’.39
How can we analyse these two phases in the transfer of the Turkey red
technique? The first phase introduced by Armenians in Marseilles during the
1670s was marked by a cult of secrecy and the energy displayed by these
craftsmen. This energy led to the transfer of a technology and the men who
mastered it throughout the Mediterranean. Prior to benefiting from the
presence of this technique, the Provencal port was merely the theatre for
productive and mercantile strategies launched by a group of Eastern
Christians. By the second half of the Eighteenth Century, the Greeks and the
arrival of Andrinople red in Europe changed everything. These Eastern
migrants were no longer initiating the circulation of men and their techniques.
Western entrepreneurs and nations had also become active. Europeans
travelled to Asia in order to seek out local craftsmen40, while ministers
introduced policies to attract Asian workers. With the involvement of
governments, these skills could no longer be kept secret and the practices
brought by the Greeks were now codified in order to ensure their
dissemination and guarantee the long-term future of the production.41
38
“The high quality of Greek olive oil used during the scouring phase which
contributed considerably to the beauty and the solidity of Thessalian colour”. Kinini,
‘La fabrication du rouge turc’, p.82.
39
With regard to hybridization and innovation, see Pérez and Verna, ‘La circulation
des savoirs techniques’.
40
Sometimes they went also to access and to codify useful knowledge on site, as did
Anton Hove and Benjamin Heyne in India. See Maxine Berg, “Useful knowledge,
‘industrial enlightenment’, and the place of India”, Journal of Global History, 8-1
(2013), pp.117-141.
41
We can quote for example the publication, by the French government, of dyeing
methods used by François Goudard in Aubenas. On the desire to codify and diffuse
these skills, see Hilaire-Pérez, ‘Cultures techniques’.
24
Research by Liliane Hilaire-Pérez on Jean-Claude Flachat and the Royal Factory
at Saint Chamond and by Olga Katsiardi Hering on the role of the Habsburgs in
spreading techniques for Andrinople red throughout the Austro-Hungarian
Empire perfectly illustrates the changes that occurred during these two
periods and provides evidence of a turning point in the circulation of Eurasian
techniques.42 From now on, and notably thanks to the combined efforts of
governments and entrepreneurs, it was the Europeans who took control and
this innovation was perhaps emblematic of the times and the first signs of a
‘great divergence’ in economic development in Asia and Europe.
***
With this research at the crossroads between micro-history and
connected history, my intention is to show the heuristic value of my
hypotheses. This article emphasizes the benefits to be gained from analyzing
the role that Asian communities played in the construction of new
consumption markets in seventeenth-century Europe and in taking the
initiative of transferring techniques from one continent to another. Printed
calicoes and madder red dyeing techniques do not represent an isolated case.
Further research should be carried out into the activities of other groups, such
as Maronite and Syriac Christians, and other consumer products and
production methods, such as coffee, Turkish baths, coral, silk and Angora
wool. More importantly, a study of the migration of tastes, products, men and
techniques across the Eurasian landmass offers promising results that could
42
Hilaire-Pérez, ‘Cultures techniques’; Katsiardi-Hering, ‘The Allure of Red Cotton
Yarn’.
25
provide a new approach to the underlying causes of economic, social and
technical transformations that led to the first industrial revolution in Europe. 43
43
On this topic see Maxine Berg, ‘Les siècles asiatiques de l’Europe. Asie, luxe et
approches nouvelles de la révolution industrielle’ in Jean-Claude Daumas (ed.),
L’histoire économique en mouvement. Entre héritages et renouvellements (Villeneuve
d’Ascq: Presses du Septentrion, 2012), pp.341-356.
26