I swooned when I found this one, at an antiques shop in Columbia PA, and can't find documentation of another like it out there anywhere. It was produced by Kuttroff, Pickhardt & Co., NYC, an early American dye company, started by the German immigrant Adolf Kuttroff to commercialize chemical dyes from the French firm A. Poirrier. In 1876, the company became the American seller of the Badische Anilin und Soda Fabrik (BASF) chemical company. (In 1925, it was one of the companies that merged to form the General Dyestuff Corporation.) believe this dates to the late 19th century or so.)
Here is a glorious grid of 120 Aniline colors (artificially produced as opposed to natural dyes, which revolutionized the fashion industry) coloring pieces of loose cotton, with each sample of cotton tightly packed into its own square in the grid. The cardboard flaps opening to either side detail the dyes used to produce each color. The opposite side of those printed flaps provide detailed instuction on the use of the dyes. I presume a sampler like this would have been distributed to a textile producer or similar.
All the way open, with flaps out: 26" x 14 1/4". Closed: 14 1/4" x 6 1/4" x 1 7/8". Overall very good condition, with all cotton sampled firmly stuffed in place and the text panels in very good condition. One short/side flap of the box when closed is loose, as pictured, and whatever closure once existed (seems likely a snap attached to black ribbon) is gone. It can stand on its own, open, for display, if balanced, most stable if displayed against a backdrop.
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