softer in style, with elements of more classic grace and playfulness; their motives moreover are seldom original, but are borrowed from various sources, some from German engravings, some from Botticelli or a designer closely akin to him, some from the pages of the British Museum Chronicle-book itself, with a certain softening and attenuating of their rugged spirit; as though the book, after the death of the original draughtsman-engraver, had remained in his workshop and continued to be used by his successors. We thus find ourselves in presence of a draughtsman of the school of Pollaiuolo, some of whose drawings bear an ancient attribution to Finiguerra, while all agree with what is otherwise known of him, and one or two are exactly repeated in extant works of niello, the craft which was peculiarly his own; others being intimately related to the earliest or all but the earliest works of Florentine engraving, the kindred craft which tradition avers him to have practised, and which Vasari erroneously believed him to have invented. Surely, it has been confidently argued, this draughtsman must be no other than the true Finiguerra himself. The argument has not yet been universally accepted, but neither has any competent criticism appeared to shake it; so that it may be regarded for the present as holding the field.
Bibliography.—See Bandinelli in Bottari, Raccolta di lettere (1754), i. p. 75; Vasari (ed. Milanesi), i. p. 209, iii. p. 206; Benvenuto Cellini, I Trattati dell’ orificeria, &c. (ed. Lemonnier), pp. 7, 12, 13, 14; Baldinucci, Notizie dei professori di disegno (1845), i. pp. 518, 519, 533; Zani, Materiali per servire, &c. (1802); Duchesne, Essai sur les nielles (1824); Dutuit, Manuel de l’amateur d’estampes, vol. i. pref. and vol. ii.; and for a full discussion of the whole question, with quotations from earlier authorities and reproductions of the works discussed, Sidney Colvin, A Florentine Picture Chronicle (1898). (S. C.)
FINISHING. The term finishing, as specially applied in the
textile industries, embraces the process or processes to which
bleached, dyed or printed fabrics of any description are subjected,
with the object of imparting a characteristic appearance to the
surface of the fabric, or of influencing its handle or feel. Strictly
speaking, certain operations might be classed under this heading
which are conducted previous to bleaching, dyeing, &c; e.g.
mercerizing (q.v.), stretching and crabbing, singeing (see Bleaching);
but as these are not undertaken by the finisher, only
those will be dealt with here which are not mentioned under
other headings. By the various treatments to which the fabric
is subjected in finishing, it is often so altered in appearance that
it is impossible to recognize in it the same material that came
from the loom or from the bleacher or dyer. On the other hand,
one and the same fabric, subjected to different processes of
finishing, may be made to represent totally different classes of
material. In other cases, however, the appearance of the finished
article differs but slightly from that of the piece on leaving the
loom.
All processes of finishing are purely mechanical in character, and the most important of them depend upon the fact that in their ordinary condition (i.e. containing their normal amount of moisture), or better still in a damp state, the textile fibres are plastic, and consequently yield to pressure or tension, ultimately assuming the shape imparted to them. The old-fashioned box press, formerly largely used for household linen, owed its efficacy to this principle. At elevated temperatures the damp fibres become very much more plastic than at the ordinary temperature, the simplest form of finishing appliance based on this fact being the ordinary flat iron. Indeed it may safely be stated that most of the modern finishing processes have been evolved from the household operations of washing (milling), brushing, starching, mangling, ironing and pressing.
Cotton Pieces.—In the ordinary process of bleaching, cotton goods are subjected during the various operations to more or less continual longitudinal tension, and while becoming elongated, shrink more or less considerably in width. In order to bring them back to their original width, they are stretched or “stentered” by means of specially constructed machines. The most effective of these is the so-called stentering frame, which consists essentially of two slightly diverging endless chains carrying clips or pins which hold the piece in position as it traverses the machine. The length of a frame may vary from 20 to 30 yds. On the upper part of the frame the chains run in slots, and by means of set screws the distance between the two chains can be set within the required limits. The pieces are fed on to one end of the machine in the damp state by hand and are then naturally slack. But before they have travelled many yards they become taut, the stretching increasing as they travel along. Simultaneously with the stretching, the pieces are dried by a current of hot air which is blown through from below, so that on arriving at the end of the machine they are not only stretched to the required degree but are also dry. The machine used for stentering is more fully described under Mercerizing (q.v.). In case the goods come straight from the loom to be finished, stentering is not necessary.
Pieces intended to receive a “pure” finish pass on without further treatment to the ordinary finishing processes such as calendering, hot pressing, raising, &c. But in the majority of cases they are previously impregnated, according to the finish desired, with stiffening or softening agents, weighting materials, &c. Usually, starch constitutes the main stiffening agent, with additions of china clay, barium compounds, &c., for weighting purposes, and Turkey red oil, with or without the addition of some vegetable oil or fat, as the softening agent. Magnesium sulphate is also largely used in order to give “body” to the cloth, which it does by virtue of its property of crystallizing in fine felted needle-shaped crystals throughout the mass of the fabric. When starch is used in filling, it is advisable to add some anti-septic, such as zinc chloride, sodium silicofluoride, phenol or salicylic acid, in order to prevent or retard subsequent development of mildew. The impregnation of the pieces with the filling is effected in two ways, viz. either throughout the thickness of the cloth or on one surface only (back starching). When the whole piece is to be impregnated the operation is conducted in a starching mangle, which is similar in construction to an ordinary household mangle, though naturally larger and more elaborate in construction. The pieces run at full width through a trough situated immediately below the bowls and containing the filling (starch paste, &c.), then between the bowls, the pressure (“nip”) of which regulates the amount of filling taken up, and thence over a range of steam-heated drying cylinders (see Bleaching). In case one side only of the goods is to be stiffened—and this is usually necessary in the case of printed goods,—a so-called back-starching mangle is employed.
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| Fig. 1.—Principle of Back-Starching Machine. |
The construction of the machine varies, but the simplest form consists essentially of a wooden bowl a (Fig. 1) which runs in the starch paste contained in trough t. The pieces pass from the batch-roller B, through scrimp rails S and over the bowl under tension, touching the surface from which they gather the starch paste. By means of the fixed “doctor” blade d, which extends across the piece, the paste is levelled on the surface of the fabric and excess scraped off, falling back into the trough. The goods are then dried with the face side to the cylinders.
Some goods come into the market with no further treatment after starching other than running through a mangle with a little softening and then drying, but in the great majority of cases they are subjected to further operations.
Damping.—When deprived of their natural moisture by drying on the cylinder drying machine, cotton goods are not in a fit condition to undergo the subsequent operations of calendering, beetling, &c., since the fibres in the dry state have lost their plasticity. The pieces are consequently damped to the desired degree, and this is usually effected in a damping machine in passing through which they meet with a fine spray of water.
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| Fig. 2.—Principle of Damping Machine. |
A simple and effective device for this purpose is shown in section in Fig. 2. It consists essentially of a brass roller r running in water
