The term Turkey Red can be quite confusing – it is often used to describe a colour (particularly in modern parlance) – but it is actually an historical method for producing a very fast red colour on cotton cloth using the dyestuff madder. As a collector of historical dye books and Journals it always thrills me to find one I’ve been particularly looking for. At the Antique Textile Fair in Manchester in the early noughties I found one of particular importance – The Art of Dyeing Wool, Silk and Cotton by Hellot, Macquer and M le Pileur d’Apligny. It is said to contain the first (European) written record of how…