ABSTRACT
Matthew Boulton marketed the ingenuity and novelty of the process as much as its quality to his eighteenth-century customers. This chapter explores the origins of Boulton's so-called mechanical paintings and the features of the mechanical painting process. It also considers the findings and significance of recent scientific investigation of some of the alleged mechanical paintings by using Infrared Reflectogram, paint cross-section and other techniques. The chapter situates the Boulton's mechanical paintings within the eighteenth-century fascination with ingenuity. The role of ingenuity in marketing was strong enough to persuade Boulton to pass off some hand-copied pictures as mechanical paintings. In mechanical paintings Boulton was trying to imitate oil paintings, as he said he had discovered a more accurate way of reproduction than hand-painting alone. The idea of copying oil paintings by a mechanical process started when artists made several copies of their own paintings. The materials and machines used in mechanical painting process included a rolling press, copper plates and canvas.
