Image Captions

1. Detail. Occonomie rustique, Carbon de Bois, PI. II, Plate 25, Charcoal II Vol. 1., ca. 1762-77. Source: Charles C. Gillispie, editor, A Diderot Pictoral Encyclopedia of Trades and Industry, Dover, 1993 reprint of 1954 original.

2. Thomas Lenne, embers, 2014. Thomas Lenne / Alamy.

3. Heather Hansen, Charcoal drawing from Emptied Gestures, 2013. Photo courtesy the artist and Bryan Tarnowski.

4. Imaginechina, Chinese villagers walk through burning charcoal as they participate in the traditional ritual Lianhuo, "fire walking", in Pan'an county, Jinhua city, east China's Zhejiang province. Imaginechina Limited / Alamy Stock Photo.

5. Rosa Bonheur (French, 1822-1899), Charcoal burners (Les charbonniers), 1880-1890s. Charcoal and white chalk, stumping and lifting, on gray-green wove paper. (unframed): 19 1/2 x 25 5/16 in. The J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles, Gift of Daniel and Sophie Thierry in honor of Lee Hendrix, 2016.106, Public Domain, CCO 1.0 Universal.

6. Trademark registration by L. T. Greenfield for Charcoal Mints brand Pellets for Headache, Heartburn, Flatulence, and Indigestion, 1891. Digital file from original. From Library of Congress, U.S. Patent Office trademarks. https://hdl.loc.gov/loc.pnp/trmk.1t19957 (accessed June 19, 2025)

7. FotoHelin, activated charcoal capsule, 2019. FotoHelin / Alamy.

8. Mike Goldwater, Nampula, Mozambique, May 2010: Delivering charcoal door to door, 2010. Mike Goldwater / Alamy.

9. Edgar Degas (French, Paris 1834-1917), Madame Lisle, ca. 1866-70. Charcoal and pastel with red, black, and white chalk on beige wove paper. (sheet): 8 9/16 x 10 1/4 in. The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Rogers Fund, 1918, 19.51.5

10. Totoya Hokkei (Japanese, 1780-1850), Lobster on a Piece of Charcoal, Edo period (1615-1868). Woodblock print (surimono); ink and color on paper. 8 3/16 x 7 1/4 in. The Metropolitan Museum of Art, H. O. Havemeyer Collection, Bequest of Mrs. H. O. Havemeyer, 1929, JP2219.

11. Ford Motor Company, Ford Charcoal Briquets and Picnic Kit Display in a Hardware Store, 1938. Gelatin silver print. 7 3/4 x 10 in. From the Collections of The Henry Ford. Gift of Ford Motor Company, 64.167.833.P.70167.A.

12. Charcoal burner Eduardo Alfonso, 58. Photograph: Adalberto Roque/AFP via Getty Images.

13. An antique charcoal iron. Anneke / stock.adobe.com.

14. MehmetO, a chef grills meat the traditional way in Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan, 2018. MehmetO / Alamy.

15. Japanese, Charcoal Basket, 19th century. Bamboo. 4 x 11 in. (diam.). The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Fletcher Fund, 1925, 25.215.35.

16. Interior View of the Ward Charcoal Ovens in Nevada. Michael / stock.adobe.com.

17. Lararium in the shape of a Corinthian temple, from the House of the Black Hall, Ist century AD. 39 3/8 x 39 3/8 in. (Despite The Chipstone Foundation's efforts to contact the Museums of the Palace of Portici, Herculaneum, and Minerva Magazine the necessary rights for this image have not been obtained.)

18. Traumrune, Lascaux IV, Montignac, Dordogne, France, 2017. The photograph shows the Atelier. © Traumrune / Wikimedia Commons/cc BY-SA 3.0

19. From Pyramid, Sphere, Cube, Pyramid, 1997-8, David Nash. Charcoal on canvas. Tate, Presented by the Trustees of the Chantrey Bequest 1999. © David Nash. Photo: © Tate.

20. Georgia O'Keeffe (American, 1887-1986), No. 8 - Special (Drawing No. 8), 1916. (sheet: (irregular)): 24 1/2 X 18 7/8in. (62.2 X 47.9 cm). Whitney Museum of American Art, New York; purchase, with funds from the Mr. and Mrs. Arthur G. Altschul Purchase Fund, 85.52. © Georgia O'Keeffe Museum / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York. Digital image © Whitney Museum of American Art / Licensed by Scala/ Art Resource, NY.

21. Dante Gabriel Rossetti (English, 1828-1882), Study of a Young Woman [Mrs. Eaton], ca. 1863-1865. Black chalk and charcoal, with stumping on paper. 18 5/16 x 12 3/8 in. Iris & B. Gerald Cantor Center for Visual Arts at Stanford University; Museum Purchase Fund, 1970.390.

22. Richard Purcell (active 1746-1766), Night. Boy blowing Charcoal, undated, Mezzotint on moderately thick, moderately textured, cream laid paper, Yale Center for British Art, Paul Mellon Fund, B1970.3.1115.

23. Robert Capa (American, b. Hungary 1913-1954), Henri Matisse draveing with bamboo pole tipped with charcoal in his studio, Nice, France, 1949. Photo-negative-black & white. The Robert Capa and Cornell Capa Archive, Gift of Cornell and Edith Capa, 2010. Accession No. CAR1950.7.6. Courtesy International Center of Photography / Magnum Photos.

24. Duncan Astbury, burnt bark, 2015. Duncan Astbury / Alamy.

25. J. Le Blond (engraver, French, ca. circa 1635-1709), Jean Robert, a charcoal-burner. Etching with engraving. Welcome Collection. Source: Welcome Collection. https://wellcomecollection.org/works/x2j85w4h

26. Mactavish & Co. Ltd. (Publisher). Charcoal stoves for warming hands and feet (winter time), Shanghai, ca. 1922. Rotogravures. [9 x 14 cm]. The New York Public Library, The Miriam and Ira D. Wallach Division of Art, Prints and Photographs: Picture Collection. https://digitalcollec- tions.nypl.org/items/c262501b-036a-8402-e040-e00a18060146

27. Florian Kopp. Stove, firewood, logging, charcoal production, Chaco, Sentiago del Estaero Province, Argentina, South America.imagebroker.com / Alamy Stock Photo.

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Maggie M. Cao is an art historian and associate professor at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. She studies the intersections of art, science, and economics in the eighteenth and nineteenth-century United States. Her current research focuses on artistic engagements with ecological time. She is the author of two books: The End of Landscape in Nineteenth-Century America (2018) and Painting US Empire: Nineteenth-Century Art and Its Legacies (2025). She is also an editor of the interdisciplinary journal Grey Room.

1. William Trost Richards (American, 1833-1905), Forest Scene with Rocky Brook, ca. 1864-67. Charcoal on cream, moderately thick, slightly textured wove paper mounted to paper. (Sheet): 22 13/16 x 17 13/16 in. (57.9 x 45.2 cm). Brooklyn Museum, Gift of Edith Ballinger Price, 72.32.2.

2. Auguste Allongé (French, 1833-1898), A Pond in the Forest of Fontainebleau, 1870-98. Charcoal. (sheet): 27 9/16 x 39 3/8 in. The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Purchase, Friends of Drawings and Prints Gifts, 2023, 2023.381.

3. Adolphe Appian (French, 1818-1898), A Pond with a Fisherman along the River Ain, 1868-70. Charcoal with stumping and scratching out. 21 5/8 x 38 1/4 in. The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Purchase, Gift of Mrs. Gardner Cassatt, by exchange, 1998, 1998.359.

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Róisin Inglesby is a curator and historian who specialises in craft and design. After curatorial roles at the V&A, Tower of London, and Teen Museum, Tokyo, since 2018 she has been Curator at William Morris Gallery in East London. Recent exhibitions include Art Without Heroes: Mingei (2024), Young Poland (2021) and William Morris and the Bauhaus (2019). In 2024 Inglesby was named one of Apollo magazine's 40 Under 40 for her work at the intersection of art and craft.

1. A.W.N. Pugin (designer). Eclesiastical design, 19th century-20th century. Pen and ink and watercolor on laid paper. 22 1/4 x 17 1/4 in. Given by the Community of St. John Baptist, E.1162-2012. © Victoria and Albert Museum, London. [back and front]

2. Raffaellino del Garbo (also known as Raffaelle de Capponi and Raffaelle de Carli) (Italian, San Lorenzo a Vigliano, ca. 1470-after 1527). The Angel of the Annunciation (Cartoon for an Embroidery), 1466-1524. Pen and brown ink, brush and brown wash, highlighted with white gouache, over black chalk on paper washed brown; outlines of design and framing outlines pricked and with traces of rubbed black pouncing dust. 3 13/16 in. (diam.). The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Rogers Fund, 1912, 12.56.5a.

3. An artisan at work for the Sunny Sign Co, founded by Jake Tyler and Hana Sunny Whaler.

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Adrian Miller is an award-winning culinary author, professional speaker, certified barbecue judge, and recovering attorney based in Denver. He served as a special assistant to President Bill Clinton on his Initiative for One America and later as a senior policy analyst for Colorado Governor Bill Ritter Jr. Adrian is the author of four books on African American and Asian heritage foodways. His latest, Cooking to the President's Taste, was published in May 2025 by the White House Historical Association.

1. Shreveport-Bossier Convention and Tourist Bureau, Real BBQ and More in Shreveport. Shared under a Creative Commons Attribution CC BY 2.0 Generic license. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/deed.en [https://www.flickr.com/photos/shreveportbossier/16113535435/]

2. Shreveport-Bossier Convention and Tourist Bureau, Real BBQ and More in Shreveport. Shared under a Creative Commons Attribution CC BY 2.0 Generic license. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/deed.en [https://www.flickr.com/photos/shreveportbossier/15926237040/]

3. Shreveport-Bossier Convention and Tourist Bureau, Real BBQ and More in Shreveport. Shared under a Creative Commons Attribution CC BY 2.0 Generic license. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/deed.en [https://www.flickr.com/photos/shreveportbossier/15927760557/]

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Chris Murtha is an independent critic, scholar, and curator. After studying studio art at New York University and leading a non-profit contemporary art gallery, he earned his master's in Art History from Hunter College. His writing, which has appeared in Artforum, Art in America, ArtReview, Cultured, e-flux, Frieze, and Mousse, covers contemporary and post-war artists working in a wide variety of media and disciplines, from the handmade approaches of ceramics and fiber arts to the conceptual strategies of appropriation, institutional critique, and the Readymade.

1. Robert Longo, Detail of Untitled (After Kline, New York, NX, 1953), 2014. © Robert Longo / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York.

2. Robert Longo, Untitled (After Kline, New York, NY, 1953), 2014. Charcoal on mounted paper, 109 1/4 x 70 inches (277.5 x 177.8 cm). © Robert Longo / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York.

3. Robert Longo, Untitled (After Pollock, Autumn Rhythm: Number 30, 1951) in progress. © Robert Longo / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York.

4. Robert Longo, Detail of Untitled (After Pollock, Autumn Rhythm: Number 30, 1951), 2014. © Robert Longo / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York.

5. Robert Longo, Untitled (After Pollock, Autumn Rhythm: Number 30, 1951), 2014. Charcoal on mounted paper, 91 1/4 x 180 inches (231.8 x 457.2 cm). © Robert Longo / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York.

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Lindsey Muscato is, together with Joshua Friedman, a principal of Base 10, a handmade furniture practice in Los Angeles, California. Founded in 2015, the studio combines the influences of fine art study and years of experience in Japanese woodworking. The resulting work is crafted with an attunement to function and process, form and precedent. Base 10 creates furniture that balances the integrity and labor of the handmade with an impression of effortless simplicity and inevitable beauty, reverent of the traditions and materials engaged.

1. Base 10 (Lindsey Muscato and Joshua Friedman), process photograph. Photo by Brian Guido.

2. Base 10 (Lindsey Muscato and Joshua Friedman), Soma Chair, from the Offcuts series, 2024. Photo by Erik Benjamins.

3. Base 10 (Lindsey Muscato and Joshua Friedman), process photograph. Photo by Brian Guido.

4. Base 10 (Lindsey Muscato and Joshua Friedman), process photograph. Photo by Brian Guido.

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Anaïs Walsdorf is a historian of industrial science and empire. She is currently working on her AHRC-funded PhD based at the University of Warwick and the Science Museum, London. Her thesis focuses on the collection of metallurgist John Percy, and explores the relationship between scientific metallurgy and British industrial imperialism in the nineteenth century. Anaïs has also worked as a museum, library, and archive professional with institutions such as the 1947 Partition Archive, Wellcome Collection and Library, the Migration Museum (UK), and the International Coalition of Sites of Conscience.

1. Anand.osuri. Sal forest near Dehradun, India, 2018. Anand.osuri. Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International CC BY-SA 4.0. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/deed.en

2. Elwin, Verrier. 1942. The Agaria. [London]: H. Milford, Oxford University Press, "Agaria burning charcoal," Plate 22.

3. Elwin, Verrier. 1942. The Agaria. [London]: H. Milford, Oxford University Press, "Party of Agaria from Bhoira, Mandla District, returning from the jungle with ore and charcoal," Plate 21.

4. Diego Delso. Iron Column at Delhi, 2009. Diego Delso, delso.photo, License CC BY-SA. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/legalcode

5. Gurpreet Singh Ranchi. People worshiping under the Sal tree during the celebration of Sarhul in Jharkhand by Gurpreet Singh Ranchi, 2017. Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International CC BY-SA 4.0. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/deed.en

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Doris Wicki comes from a family that has been engaged in charcoal burning for generations. She learned the trade from her father whom she accompanied to his charcoal kilns in the woods of the Swiss Entlebuch region from an early age. Following a career as a hairdresser, she has dedicated herself to charcoal burning since 2004. She is the only woman in Europe currently practicing in this male-dominated profession. In total, she produces up to fifteen tonnes of charcoal per season.

1. Diagram of a charcoal burning pile. Image courtesy of Doris Wicki.

2. Image courtesy of Doris Wicki.

3. Image courtesy of Doris Wicki.

4. Image courtesy of Doris Wicki.

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They went forth into the wood,
and cleared them space to dwell in,
and builded them halls such as they loved,
and fell to their old woodland crafts
of charcoal-burning and hunting,
wherein they throve well.

–William Morris, The Roots of the Mountains

Just a piece of coal, the size of a small pocket pencil, held flat between the thumb and forefinger, a sheet of paper, and then "let go."

—F. Hopkinson Smith

Hai re hai! What earth is used to make the kiln?
What earth is used to strengthen the iron?
What wood is used for the charcoal
Which turns the stones to water?

Hai re hai! The kiln is made with murminjni earth.
The iron is strengthened with chapra earth.
The charcoal is made with sarai wood
And turns the stones to water. Hai re hai!

—Agaria dance song, Mawai, Uttar Pradesh

Is there who, lock'd from ink and paper, scrawls
With desp'rate charcoal round his darken'd walls?

—Alexander Pope

Charcoal, when it has passed through fire and has been quenched, only begins to assume its active properties; and, when it might be supposed to have been reduced to annihilation, it is then that it has its greatest energies.
An element this, of immense, of boundless power, and, as to which, it is a matter of doubt whether it does not create even more than it destroys!

—Pliny the Elder

I began with charcoal and paper and decided not to use any color until it was impossible to do what I wanted to do in black and white. I believe it was June before I needed blue.

–Georgia O’Keefe

A colorist makes his presence known even in a simple charcoal drawing.

–Henri Matisse

Love is a fire that burns and sparkles,
In men as nat’rally as in charcoals,
Which sooty chymists stop in holes,
When out of wood they extract coals.

–Samuel Butler, Hudibras, Part II (1664)

We carried rice, our stomachs empty.
Loading cloth, we wore sacking.
Hoisting wood and charcoal, our stoves were cold.

–Huang Sheng-hsiao [working class Chinese poet]