Increased Imports of Colorants and Constituent Components during the 18th Century Reflects the Start of the Consumer Society in Norway
Round 1
Reviewer 1 Report
Dear Author
I have read your paper with interest. The information given are huge! I would like to suggest you improve and revise the quality of many of your figures. Most of them are not straightforward or difficult to read. There are also some details that need to be explained in the text. I marked my suggestion in the text (underlined and related comment)
Best
Comments for author File: 
Comments.pdf
Author Response
Thank you very much for the pertinent and valuable comments.
The figures have undergone changes, including additional colours and text, to better explain the curves. I have taken into account the constructive suggestions and comments, and additional references have been included
Reviewer 2 Report
Manuscript ID: heritage-2000808
Type of manuscript: Article
Title: Increased Colorant Imports during the 18th Century reflects the Start of the Consumer Society in Norway
1. Recommendation:
Reconsider after major revisions
2. Comments to the authors:
2.1 Overview and general recommendation
The paper "Increased Colorant Imports during the 18th Century reflects the Start of the Consumer Society in Norway" presents an interesting review and discussion of the import data of different artistic materials (i.e., colorants, binders, and textiles) based on historical records of different periods. The information is relevant to several research fields, such as art history, archaeology, conservation, technical art history, and heritage science. However, the way the information is presented is complex and difficult to follow, and some rearrangement of the information as well as some modifications to the figures are required to make it clearer and easier to read.
I am confident that if the author is willing to revise, summarize and modify some figures presented, the work will improve considerably. For this reason, I recommend reconsidering the paper after major revisions. I explain my concerns in detail below.
2.2 Major comments
The text is hard to follow because of the amount of information presented, this could be improved by summarizing (e.g., by merging some sections) some of the information and rearranging the structure. The first part of the text mentions the data regarding the materials which is particularly interesting; however, this could be integrated with other sections. For example:
3. Results
3.1 Dyes and mordants
3.1.1 Imports by color and prices
3.2 Pigments and binders
3.2.1 Imports by color and prices
3.3 Other goods (consider moving this section to the appendices or eliminating it from the paper).
4. Discussion
4.1 Domestic market
4.2 Two chromatic evolutions
4.3 Colorant imports and the start of the consumer society (you can add here section 4.5.4)
Moreover, many of the figures are very difficult to read and the exact years studied and the information is not straightforward visible in the figures. Please revise the figures.
There is no indication through the text of some citations supporting historical information reported. Please indicate the sources where it is required, for example, on page 10 lines 275-277: "Similarly, toxic arsenic compounds were also used for make-up, lead to give a pale complexion and cinnabar was used as rouge.” This affirmation should be supported by citing literature that reports this information, please revise the text and add cite when reporting information that must be supported by evidence or literature.
The title indicates the focus on colorants, yet, data regarding other materials such as binders, mordants, and textiles (Section 3.2 Other consumer goods) are reported, please consider summarizing that information or moving those sections to the appendices or the supplementary information.
2.3 Minor comments
Some terms seem to be quite modern, are those terms added by the author, or are they reported in the historical records? For example, "emulsion paints" or "house paints." For the former is quite interesting, do the records indicate the components of the emulsions?
Page 1. Line 5. Please revise the author's name, it seems there is an error.
Page 1. Abstract. Line 15. Consider eliminating "in society." After social groups.
Page 2. Materials and Methods section, Line 75. Please add the period of the Kingdom Denmark-Norway in parentheses. (e.g., 1524-1533, 1537-1814). This could help readers to understand the historical period.
Please revise the use of the Oxford comma, for example, in the years listed on page 2, lines 80, 81, and 82. Please revise this throughout the text.
Also, for this section, please consider summarizing the information in a table where you can report the data per year (rows) for each place (columns), and a column for notes where specific information of some records can be reported, e.g., additional information, errors, etc. Consider also moving section 3.1.5 (Page 10, lines 257-263) to the methodology, since it only describes a decision in the data selection, therefore it is part of the methodology used in the study.
Page 2, Line 85-86. "Dashed graph lines in the figures indicate a lack of data between the recorded years." Consider moving this phrase to the Figures caption since it describes the information presented therefore it should be close to the figure.
Page 3, Line 106. "Thirty-two" should be written with the number "32."
Page 3. Line 109. A space is missing in "61of" of them.
Page 3. Figure 1a. I understand the choice of line graph yet is difficult to see the exact years reported, please consider modifying it by reporting only the years studied in the x-axis or by changing it to a bar graph of the specific years. The exact information must be clear for the reader. This should be done with all the graphs that present different years. Also in that figure, the caption says “(b) Percentage distribution of imported quantities of pigments, dyes, mordants, and binders.” Please specify the years or period considered for this graph.
In some graphs the number of lines makes it difficult to read correctly the information of the figure, please consider substituting them with column graphs. Some examples of this are figures 4, 6, 16, 19, 20,
Page 3. Line 121-122. This information is interesting, yet, did you consider the relation between weight-volume and use of the materials? For example, dyes tend to be "lighter" than pigments and their use requires lower quantities in comparison to some mineral pigments. This is just a comment, it is not necessary to add this information to the paper.
Page 5. Figure 3a. Yellow color is not easy to read. Please change it.
Page 5. Binder section. Lines 177-179. The information on the use of cod oil as a binder is quite interesting since it is not so common, please add a citation to support this information.
Page 7. Line 218. It is quite interesting the use of different names, is there any correlation between the origin of the imports and the name? For example, does Campecheholt is related to Hispanic/American origin?
Page 9. Figure 8. Yellow lines difficult reading the information, please change it to a color easier to see over a white background.
Page 12. Figure 12. Indicating the type of graph in the axis is not a common practice when reporting information, consider changing the color of the y-axis to match the type of graph (i.e., left y-axis blue to match the line plot, right y-axis red to match the column graph), thus making easier to associate the graph with the values.
Page 24. Table 1. The caption of the table goes before the table. Please revise the caption it should summarize the information presented and give an idea of its intent (e.g., comparison of dye cost between Norway and England considering the dye yield…etc.); it is not necessary to indicate the number of columns for each data. Moreover, does the Weight (%) (column 3) correspond to the % of the total weight of all the dyestuff for all the periods? This information should be stated clearly in the caption and or the column heading.
The explanation of the information presented in the table (i.e., text on page 25, lines 704-720) should go before the table.
The strategy selected for the calculation (i.e., formulas, etc.) done in this section should be explained in the methodology and materials section.
Page 23. Section 4.4.2 Increased imported dyes in the discussion can be included in the "chromatic revolution section" as is also stated in the text. This could help to summarize the information.
Author Response
Thank you very much for the pertinent, valuable and constructive comments. I have followed and taken into account most of the suggestions and comments.
(1) The figures have undergone changes, emphasizing the years of registration and outlining the yellow curves. Concerning changing to bar/column graphs, important information concerning the longitudinal import changes during the 17th century will be lost. To add grid lines made the figures appear too overloaded. In stead, the exact years of registration have been included in the legends of the figures. Markers and lines have been changed on several graphs to improve distinction of the graphs.
(2) The title is revised
(3) A new table (table 1) has been included
(4) Information in the results section has been rearrangent. However, the discussion section has not been revised, partly based on comments from another reviewer, and also because a major part of the article deals with a model for the start of the consumer society, based on the colorant imports.
(5) Supplementary references have been included.
Reviewer 3 Report
This is a really interesting and useful paper, unusual for this field and it will be new to many readers; very few people work on the supply of colorants for either dyeing or painting in either the wholesale or retail sectors, let alone the demand for these materials and factors influencing that demand. It is a really good idea to set it in the context of overall movements in the 18th- and early 19th-century consumer society in Norway, and particularly the comparison with other prices (especially the cup of coffee!). This will really bring it home to readers who haven't thought about colorants as consumer goods before (which will be most of them as this is a very sophisticated approach). Also you have drawn attention to a really interesting resource in the database of imports you have used.
There are a few things I think need some attention. Many of your readers will be familiar with the dyes, mordant materials, pigments, binders, varnish constituents and incidentals in your list. To categorise as you have done in Appendix B does simplify matters, but it oversimplifies 'mordants' and 'binders', particularly binders, to the point of inaccuracy. I think the contents of these have to be subdivided in some way and defined somewhere in the text: for example, mordants might include mordants (as in alum, iron(II) sulfate) and auxiliaries (as in wine lees or cream of tartar); binders might include binders - the oils, glues and gums, diluents - oil of turpentine, and driers. And some things fit in more than one place, as you have noted.
I think the point about indigo, logwood and blue dyeing in England is over-simplified and needs rephrasing; both were used for colours other than blue, but logwood in particular was so easy to use and gave such a range of colours quite easily - they faded, but for the fashion-conscious consumer maybe this didn't matter too much if the fabric of the dress was also fairly cheap. Perhaps it would be a good plan to read a little more about what colours the various dyes could give and on which textiles.
Figure 10 needs keys for both (a) and (b) .
I wonder also whether it would be a good idea to expand the x-axis on some of the figures but maybe somebody at the journal itself can advise you on that.
Comments for author File: Comments.pdf
Author Response
Thank you very much both for the kind remarks and for many constructive and pertinent comments.
Ì have previously been influenced by the fact that contemporaries
- probably had little understanding of the role of the various ingredients,
- that the recipes were largely developed empirically, and
- I thought that people during the 18th century probably did not understand the importance of different mordants and other constituents.
I have tried to be more accurate concerning the classification of mordants and binders.
I am very grateful indeed for all the comments which have been very informative and helpful, and I have included all the important and valuable comments in the manuscript.
Round 2
Reviewer 2 Report
I would like to thank the author for considering and integrating some of the previous comments.
