Plate 1, at left: 1. Attelier de teinture pour les couleurs ordinaires, les garençages, &c. Workers dye fibers and yarns at right, and cloth in the center and left. Skeins labeled p may be waiting to be over-dyed in another color. 2. Attelier de teinture pour les tonnes de noir. Dyeing whole cloth at the left; preparing the components of the black dye in the tuns at the right Plate 2, at right: 3. Attelier de teinture pour les cuves de bleu. A well-made indigo vat may last for several weeks of production dyeing if watched carefully. Typically, a dyehouse would have several vats of different ages active at once. Tools: 4. A vat buried in the ground maintains a more even temperature as the coloring source is extracted and adheres to the cloth. Ewers and buckets would be used to add liquid; the skimmer to remove scum as it rises to the surface. Source: Teinture en fil et coton, Différens atteliers et ustenciles. From Recueil des planches de l'Encyclopédie méthodique . . ., vol. 8 (Paris, 1790) f. 70.

From The creation of color in eighteenth-century Europe by Sarah Lowengard