Conté
(‖ kɔ̃te, ˈkɒnteɪ)
Also Conte, and with lower-case initial.
The name of the French inventor Nicolas Jacques Conté (1755–1805) used (esp. attrib.) to designate a kind of pencil, crayon, or chalk, or the process of making such pencils, which he developed.
| 1852 Reeves' Amateurs' & Artists' Companion 222 Chalks. Crayon Pencils..Swiss Crayons. Conte Crayons. Port Crayons. 1885 Encycl. Brit. XVIII. 490/1 The pencil leads prepared by the Conté process consist of a most intimate mixture of graphite and clay. 1927 W. G. Raffe Graphic Design ii. 98 The 6B pencil may give an undesirable shine at the critical place where a deep shadow is desired. Conté chalk has a much harder and calculated result. 1941 Burlington Mag. Nov. 140/1 Sketches and drawings on Ingres paper with a Conté pencil. 1943 Wyndham Lewis Let. 31 Mar. (1963) 352, I bought the last box of white conté in the ‘Art Metropole’ here the other day. 1959 Times 24 Nov. 3/7 His mature drawings, executed with a greasy conté crayon on rough-surfaced paper, are unique in their reliance on granular tone. |