Printed Ribbon — Vintage Paint Tubes

The great Parisian colorman Lefranc & Cie supplied paint to the studios of France for the better part of two centuries. Their tubes, with their distinctive metal bodies, their color-coded labels, and the particular typography of their pigment names, are among the most recognizable objects in the history of the French atelier. Vert Émeraude. Jaune de Chrome. Sienne. Bleu de Prusse. Vermillon Orange. Blanc d’Argent. These are not merely pigments; they are a vocabulary, the colors of French painting as it was practiced from the mid-19th century onward.

This ribbon carries those tubes. Reproduced from vintage Lefranc & Cie catalogue illustrations on a warm cream ground, the repeat design places the tubes in sequence along the full length of the ribbon, each one faithfully rendered with its original label, its color band, and the quiet authority of an object that spent a century being taken seriously in serious studios. Between the tubes, the cream ground carries fragments of the original catalogue typography — the Lefranc & Cie name, product descriptions in the restrained French commercial lettering of the period. It is, as far as we are aware, the only satin ribbon in existence that looks like the inside of a painter’s drawer.

10 metres total, supplied as two 5-metre strips. 190 gsm 100% poly satin. Pairs with the Lefranc paint tube wrapping paper from the same collection.