On September 13th 1852 a decree from the Prince Président (the future Emperor Napoleon III) appointed Jean-François Persoz as professor of the Chair of Dyeing, printing and finishing of fabrics at the Conservatoire. The Parisian Chamber of Commerce had agreed to sponsor the chair (stipend for a professor and assistant salaries) and to give him a position as head of the new silk conditioning chamber he was helping to set up.

After an academic career in Strasbourg as head of the chemistry faculty and director of the school of pharmacy during 15 years, Persoz was eventually regaining a position in Paris, thanks to the influential Jean-Baptiste Dumas. His respected role as practitioner was not only the result of his vice-presidency of the printing and dyeing section of the 1851 Great Exhibition of All Nations but stemmed mostly from his acclaimed publication Traité théorique et pratique de l’impression des tissus, published in 1846.

At the Conservatoire, he taught a program divided in three years closely matching the contents of his treatise. The first two years were devoted to analysis of chemical agents (including tar distillation products) and natural dyestuffs, the last, to technical processes involved in printing. A manuscript dated 1864-1867 today preserved at the musée de l’Impression sur Etoffes(Mulhouse) is a precious testimony of his teachings.

synthetic dyecorallineCorallineBottle of coralline

azulineAzuline (or Bleu de Paris)

As part of his position at the Conservatoire, he had access to a laboratory from 1854 onwards, for his own personal research as well as the enquiries and analysis required by the government. He pursued researches on various synthetic dyes, coralline in 1859 and azuline or Bleu de Paris in 1861.

Professors at the Conservatoire also had to look after the collections exhibited in the galleries of the musée industriel. To support the creation of the new chair, as well as the Chair for spinning and weaving jointly created, the Chamber of Commerce gave funds to acquire tools, samples and models. Among these stands out the four-colours printing machine by Gadd. Persoz ordered it in England and used in his laboratory before it came into the collections of the museum.

The chair went on to Victor de Luynes, who was selected after the death of Persoz in 1868.