Merrifield 1849/I

[Mary Philadelphia] Merrifield, Original Treatises, Dating from the XIIth to XVIIIth Centuries, of the Arts of Painting, in Oil, Miniature, Mosaic, and on Glass; of Gilding, Dyeing, and the Preparation of Colours and Artificial Gems; Preceded by a General Introduction; with Translations, Prefaces, and Notes I, London [John Murray] 1849.

CHAPTER VI.
PAINTING IN OIL

pp. cxlviii–ccxxii

§ 2. Colours used in Painting.

The Italians appear generally to have exercised the same care in the purification and preparation of their pigments as the Flemish, Dutch, and French artists. This is apparent from the directions preserved in those manuscripts which treat in an especial manner of the manufacture of colours, but it is seldom alluded to in the treatises on painting. The omission in the last-named works is easily accounted for on the supposition that the different processes of washing, purifying, and grinding colours were taught to the students during the first six years of their long apprenticeship. It is probable also that many studios possessed manuals or hand-books like those published in the following pages. The Byzantine MS. of Mount Athos, the Treatise of Cennini, and several MSS. now in the British Museum, are works of this class. In the MS. of Le Begue several instances are mentioned of the loan of MSS. of this description by different painters to Alcherius; and Cennini wrote his treatise, as he himself informs us, for the benefit of all who studied the arts. It was, therefore, less necessary to introduce such directions in works of higher pretensions.

Next, perhaps, in importance to the purification and preparation of the pigments was their agreement or incompatibility with each other. This subject occupied the attention of artists at a very early period; it is noticed in the third book of Eraclius,¹ and in the Marciana MS.² The subject is also alluded to in the Paduan MS. and in the Treatise of Lomazzo;³ and these passages are useful in showing what pigments were actually mixed together by the old painters, and what mixtures were to be avoided. Among the latter were verdigris and white lead, orpiment and white lead, indigo and cochineal lake, Indian lac lake and white lead. In some cases the mixtures of pigments were not such as would be recommended by modern professors of chemistry; but it is possible that, as the old masters were so select in the choice of vehicles for certain colours, they could regulate the drying of these pigments in such a manner as to prevent their exercising any chemical agency upon each other. Boschini¹ praises the colours used by Gian Bellino, especially the ultramarine, which, he says, compared with the moderns, put the latter to shame by their greater vivacity and beauty. Boschini attributes this not altogether to the goodness of the colours, but to the skill of Bellino in every part of the art.

¹ Cap. lvii. p. 252.

² P. 609.

³ Trattato, p. 193–195. See also De Piles’ Elémens de Peinture, p. 110.

¹ Ricche Minere.

The choice of good pigments was another point which engaged the attention of artists: a few hints on this subject may be collected from the work of Volpato.² The same work also contains directions³ for burning earths of different colours.

² P. 745. ³ P. 745, 747.

The different drying properties of the several pigments were also studied by the old painters, and the desiccation of some which were too long in drying was assisted by the addition of pounded glass, white copperas, or verdigris, with or without boiled oil, as the nature of the colour required.

The action of oil on the pigments, and especially on mineral pigments, was also well understood by the old masters; and where oil was known to be injurious, varnish, or, in some instances, size was substituted for it.

White Pigments.

Several white substances used as pigments and in the preparation of colours and grounds, are mentioned in the following treatises. The white pigment universally employed for oil painting is white lead, which is mentioned in the MSS. under various synonymes of albus, blacha, bracha, blanchet, biacca, and ceruse. It was called albayalde by the Spaniards.

White lead is considered a good dryer, and is even used to render oil more drying; it is, therefore, remarkable that it should be classed in the Brussels MS.⁴ among the colours which do not dry well. De Piles, however, states¹ that it dries with difficulty, especially in winter, if ground with new oil, or if it has been recently ground. The ‘Traité de Mignature’ of Christophe Ballard² contains “a great secret to make white lead dry without changing.” This consists in tempering it with oil of turpentine.

⁴ P. 818.

¹ Elémens de Peinture, p. 140.

² Lyon, 1693, 6th Ed., p. 216. The first edition was published in 1682.

The Italians, and especially the Venetians, were extremely careful in the preparation of their white lead,³ which was generally purified by washing. Fra Fortunato of Rovigo, in his ‘Raccolta di Secreti,’ gives the following recipe “for rendering white lead extraordinarily white. Take white lead in scales, select the finest quality, grind it well on marble with vinegar and it will become black, then take an earthen vessel full of water and wash your white well, and let it settle to the bottom, and pour off the water. Grind it again with vinegar and again wash it, and when you have repeated the operation three or four times, you will have white lead which will be as excellent for miniature painting as for painting in oil.”⁴

³ “Lindo alvayalde de Venecia” – “el mayor alvayalde que se hallare, i lo es sobre todos el de Venecia.” Pacheco, Tratado, pp. 354, 387.

⁴ Per rendere la biacca più bianca straordinariamente. Prendete biacca di piombo in scaglie, eleggete la più bella, e macinatela bene sul marmo con aceto, e diventerà nera, allora prendete un vaso di terra piena d’acqua, e lavata il vostro bianco bene, poi lasciatelo bene dar in fondo, e verrate l’acqua per inclinazione. Tornatela a macinare con aceto et a lavare; e fatta questa operazione med.ᵃ 3 o 4 volte, che havera una biacca che sarà perfettam.ᵉ bella tanto per miniare, quanto per dipingere a olio.

There is scarcely a doubt that the pigment called “lime” was the preparation of lime mentioned by Cennini⁵ and Imperato,⁶ under the name of Bianco San Giovanni. The lime was prepared by macerating it in water until it had lost all causticity. According to Imperato, pulverized white marble was added to the lime. This pigment was used in fresco painting. It is known to later authors by the name of biancho secco.¹

⁵ Cap. 58. ⁶ Istoria Naturale, lib. iv. cap. 13.

¹ Lomazzo, Trattato, pp. 192, 194.

White chalk, marble dust, gesso, the bone of cuttle fish, alumen, and travertine, were occasionally used as white pigments. They were also frequently mixed with transparent vegetable colours to give them body.

Calcined hart’s-horn or bones were used occasionally as a white pigment.²

² Sloane MS., No. 1754; Strasburg MS., cited by Mr. Eastlake, ‘Materials,’ p. 133.

Egg-shell white was employed in fresco painting. With reference to this pigment, Lomazzo³ says, that “there is another thing which, in fresco painting, causes the colours to remain unchanged as when first applied on the damp lime; and this, which is one of the rare inventions belonging to the technical part of the art, consists of the shells of eggs finely ground, and mixed in greater or less proportion with all the colours.”

³ Trattato, p. 191.

Terra di cava, terra da boccali, or terretta, a white earth used by potters. It is mentioned by Volpato⁴ and Baldinucci⁵ to have been employed in the priming for oil paintings.

⁴ P. 730. ⁵ Voc. Dis.

The pigment called alumen by Eraclius⁶ appears to have been allume scagliuola, a kind of stone resembling talc, of which, when calcined, is made the “gesso da oro,” or gesso of the gilders, which is also used for the grounds of pictures. According to Eraclius⁷ it was prepared for painting by grinding with gum and water, and was distempered when required with white of egg.

⁶ P. 245. ⁷ P. 232.

Travertine is a calcareous stone, sometimes light and porous, sometimes dense and heavy. It is of various colours, white, grey, yellowish, reddish yellow, and variegated. It is found at Pisa and Tivoli. The travertine from Tivoli is white. It was used by painters to give a body to lake made from verzino.

White marble is mentioned as a pigment for tempera painting by Palomino.¹

¹ Museo Pictorico, vol. ii. p. 113, 152.

“A most beautiful white pigment,” probably for miniature painting, is described in the Paduan MS.² It is composed of powdered Venetian glass (cristallo) and sulphur, and is precisely similar to the opaque white glass used for painting pottery, for which recipes are given in the second and third books of Eraclius.³

² P. 704. ³ P. 201, 205.

Yellow Pigments.

Arzica. – Two pigments are known by this name in medieval MSS.

The first kind of arzica is mentioned by Cennini (cap. 50), who says that it was much used at Florence for miniature painting. With regard to the nature of the pigment, he observes merely that it is an artificial colour. The Bolognese MS., written about the time of Cennini, or soon after, proves⁴ that it was a yellow lake made from the herb “gualda,” which is the Spanish and Provençal name for the Reseda luteola. The plant has been used as a yellow dye not only in England but in all Europe, from a very early period. This yellow lake was known to the Spanish painters under the name of ancorca⁵ or encorca, and when used for the kind of painting called “estofado,” was mixed with lemon juice and weak size.

⁴ P. 483.

⁵ Indice de los Terminos Primitivos de la Pintura, appended to Palomino’s Museo Pictorico.

The second kind of arzica is stated to be a yellow earth for painting, of which the moulds for casting brass are formed.⁶ A yellow loam is still used for this purpose in the foundries at Brighton. It is brought by sea from Woolwich, and when washed and dried it yields an ochreous pigment of a pale yellow colour. When burnt it changes to an orange colour, which is likely to prove valuable in painting.

⁶ Table of Synonymes, p. 19, 23.

Arzicon, or Arsicon.—In the Table of Synonymes arzicon is considered synonymous with arzica. This is not the case. Le Begue is, however, correct in saying that it is the same as orpiment. It is undoubtedly a contraction or corruption of arsenicon, which Vitruvius (lib. vii. cap. vii.) says was the Greek name for orpiment. The term arzicon must not be confounded with azarcon, the Spanish name for red lead.

Auripigmentum or Orpiment. – There was a native as well as an artificial pigment known by this name. The former is found in masses in the neighbourhood of Naples, and in other volcanic countries. It has the great advantage over the artificial pigment of being less poisonous. The artificial pigment only seems to have been known to Cennini.¹ Being difficult to grind, powdered glass was mixed with it, as we are expressly told, for this purpose.² And Pacheco directs³ orpiment should be mixed with linseed oil, made drying by boiling it with red lead or copperas in powder.⁴ For miniature painting it was tempered with gum-water and white of egg. Its brilliant yellow colour renders it a desirable pigment for draperies in oil painting, but it is not durable when mixed with oil, and dries very slowly. The author of the third book of Eraclius says,⁵ “If you mix oil with it, it will never dry.” Lebrun remarks,⁶ that “fat oil should be added to orpiment to make it dry, otherwise it will never dry.” Lomazzo also mentions⁷ that it was mixed with pulverized glass, but he does not state for what purpose the latter was added. De Mayerne, however, states⁸ that Vandyck was accustomed to mix powdered glass with orpiment to make it dry. Pacheco¹ recommends it for the same purpose; but there is some doubt as to the propriety of this mixture.

¹ Cap. 47. ² P. 503. ³ Tratado, p. 388.

⁴ He was evidently unacquainted with the fact that lead decomposes orpiment.

⁵ P. 234. ⁶ P. 813. ⁷ Trattato, p. 192.

⁸ See Mr. Eastlake’s ‘Materials,’ &c., p. 534.

¹ Tratado, p. 388.

In the third book of Eraclius it is directed² that orpiment should be crushed in a leather bag, and then ground upon marble with a little calcined bone; in this respect the directions resemble those given in the Strassburg³ and also in the Sloane MSS., No. 1754, where calcined hartshorn is said to be the only substance which can be safely mixed with orpiment to lighten it.

² P. 239. ³ Materials, &c., p. 133, 438.

Orpiment is mentioned by Biondo⁴ among the pigments used by the Venetians; and Boschini states⁵ that it was employed by Pordenone and by Paolo Veronese. A professor of painting at Venice informed me that he had found it, by analysis, on the pictures of Bonifazio only. It is generally asserted, and there appears every reason to think justly, that orpiment should not be mixed with any other colour, and especially with white lead, the bad effects of which were well known to the Italians.⁶ But there is evidence that the Italians were in the habit of mixing it with ultramarine or with indigo to make a brilliant green.⁷ The Marciana MS.⁸ recommends that white lead should be laid under orpiment, because it has no body.

⁴ Della Pittura, cap. 24, f. 20. ⁵ Ricche Minere.

⁶ See p. 609, and Armenini, lib. ii. cap. 8.

⁷ Cennini, cap. 53, 55; Borghini, Riposo, p. 170; Marciana MS., p. 611.

⁸ P. 611.

This pigment was called jalde, or oropimente, by the Spaniards. Pacheco directs,⁹ that for the second or half tints of draperies the orpiment should be burnt in an iron shovel over the fire. Palomino, after describing the method of painting draperies with orpiment, remarks,¹⁰ that he did not approve of the colour, which dried very badly and required many precautions in using it, and that it was, moreover, liable to turn black; this, he adds, may be prevented by varnishing it as soon as it is dry.

⁹ Tratado, p. 388. ¹⁰ Vol. ii. p. 252.

Giallolino, Giallorino, or Gialdolino, strictly signifies a pale yellow. It is a diminutive of giallo.

There appears to be so much confusion in the accounts of this colour by different writers, that it will be necessary to treat of it at some length.

According to Borghini¹ and Baldinucci² there were two kinds of Giallolino: the first, called “Giallolino fino,” which was brought from Flanders, was used in painting in oil, and contained lead; the other, which was brought from Venice, was composed of “Giallo di vetro” and “Giallolino fino” above mentioned. Lomazzo³ speaks of three kinds of Giallolino, which, he says, are artificial pigments, but the terms in which he mentions them are not sufficiently precise to determine exactly their names or composition.

¹ Riposo, p. 166. ² Voc. Dis.

³ Trattato, p. 192.

Sig. Branchi⁴ found on analysis that the giallolino of the old pictures at Pistoia, mentioned in the documents published by Ciampi, consisted of the yellow oxide of lead, which, he said, was known by this name in the sixteenth century. In support of this he quotes Cesalpino, who mentions a pigment then prepared from burnt or calcined lead, which was commonly called giallolino – “pigmentum pictoribus . . . quod hodie arte paratur ex plumbo usto, vulgoque giallolinum vocant.”⁵ And again, Cesalpino⁶ says, “the ashes (calx) of burnt lead assume a yellow colour, on account of the black soot mixed with the white; tin, however, gives a white calx.⁷ Painters use the former for lights and for representing flame, calling it giallolino. Potters use the latter to give a white colour to their vessels.” Professor Branchi adds, that this is confirmed by Ferrante Imperato,¹ a Neapolitan writer of the same century. This author says, “Giallolino, which is made of burnt ceruse (the first degree of alteration by fire), imitates the colour of the yellow broom.”

⁴ Lettera di Branchi, &c., p. 13.

⁵ De Metallicis, lib. ii. cap. 62. ⁶ Lib. iii. cap. vii.

⁷ Thomson (Annals, &c., p. 166) says, that the grey oxide of tin, when brought to a full red heat, takes fire, and acquiring an excess of oxygen, passes to a yellow colour.

¹ Istoria Naturale, lib. iv. cap. 42.

Dr. Fabroni,² of Arezzo, analysed the colours of a miniature of the fourteenth or beginning of the fifteenth century, and he ascertained that the yellow pigment consisted of “massicot,” which, he says, is the first gradation of the “cerussa usta” of the ancients.

² Ricerche Chimiche sopra le Miniature di un Manuscritto, Memoria del Dr. A. Fabroni di Arezzo, letta nelle Adunanze Accademiche de’ 13 Genn. e 17 Febb. 1811.

In further confirmation of the above statements it may be observed, that neither Cennini, Borghini, Lionardo da Vinci, Lomazzo, Baldinucci, nor the Paduan MS., mention “massicot,” while they all speak of giallolino.³ It may also be observed, that Lebrun, the author of the Brussels MS., mentions⁴ no yellows but ochre and massicot; the latter, he says, serves for the fine or bright yellows. Van Mander, Hoogstraten, De Bie, and Beurs,⁵ in enumerating the yellow pigments used by the Flemings, mention ochre, massicot, and yellow lake, to which all but De Bie add orpiment. Bulengerus⁶ also names massicot, which he calls “fin jaune.”

³ See Cennini, Trattato, cap. 46. Borghini, Riposo, p. 166. Lionardo da Vinci, Trattato, cap. 352, 353. Lomazzo, Trattato, p. 191, 192, 193, &c. Baldinucci, Voc. Dis.

⁴ Cap. 1, No. 6; cap. 7, No. 5.

⁵ See Mr. Eastlake’s ‘Materials,’ &c., p. 438, 440.

⁶ De Pictura, &c., lib. ii. cap. iii.

As a further proof of the identity of these pigments, it may be observed, that Haydocke, the translator of Lomazzo’s Treatise on Painting, published in 1598, translates giallolino by the word massicot.⁷ The last authority is particularly valuable on account of the translation having been made so soon after the publication of the original work.

⁷ A Tracte, containing the Artes of curious Painting, Carving, and Building, written first in Italian by Jo. Paul Lomatius, painter, of Milan, and Englished by R. H. (Haydocke), student in physick, 1598, p. 99.

Lomazzo mentions¹ “Giallolino di fornace di Fiandra e di Alamagna.” From this it would appear that two kinds of Giallolino were brought from the north into Italy. These were probably the two kinds of massicot mentioned by Félibien, who states² they were made of calcined lead, “Le massicot jaune et le massicot blanc,” or as they are called in Jombert’s edition of the Elémens de Peinture, “le massicot doré et le massicot pâle.” Haydocke translates the above-mentioned passage thus, “Yeallowe of the Flaunders fornace, and of Almany, commonly called masticot and generall.”

¹ Trattato, p. 191.

² Principes, &c., p. 299.

There is no doubt, therefore, that the “Giallolino Fino” and “Giallolino di Fornace di Fiandra” was massicot, or the yellow oxide of lead, the “Fin jaune” of the French.

The yellow pigment prepared from lead is described by Theophilus (cap. i.), who, however, does not give it a name. The same pigment is mentioned in the MS. of Le Begue.

We now come to the second kind of factitious giallolino which Baldinucci³ states was brought from Venice, and was composed of the giallolino di Fiandra and giallo di vetro. Borghini says⁴ nearly the same. In the Bolognese MS. No. 272, is a recipe for “Vetrio giallo per patrenostro o ambre,” the ingredients of which are lead 1 lb. and tin 2 lbs., melted and calcined. The recipe which follows this, No. 273, is entitled “A fare zallolino⁵ per dipengiare,” and the directions are to take 2 lbs. of the above-mentioned glass, 2 ½ lbs. of minium, and ½ lb. of sand from the Val d’Arno: the ingredients are to be pulverized finely, and then refined in the furnace. I can scarcely doubt that this is the second kind of giallolino mentioned by Baldinucci and Borghini. It may also be the third variety mentioned by Lomazzo.¹

³ Voc. Dis. ⁴ Riposo, p. 166.

⁵ It will not escape observation that the gi in this word are changed into z, as was usual among the Venetians.

¹ Trattato, p. 192.

It must be observed that Marcucci does not mention giallolino among the modern Italian pigments; he describes² three yellow pigments, namely, giallo di Napoli (Naples yellow), which he says is composed of the yellow oxide of lead and the oxide of antimony, massicot, or the yellow oxide of lead, and giallo minerale, which was composed of muriate of lead.

² Saggio, &c., p. 66.

The earliest notice I have met with in Italian writers of a pigment called Naples yellow, is in the work of Pozzo the Jesuit.³ The name he applies to the pigment is “Luteolum Romæ dicitur Luteolum Napolitanum,” and he enumerates it among the pigments to be used in fresco. He also gives a list of colours improper for this kind of painting, among which we find cerussa, minium, and luteolum Belgicum, which can be no other than giallolino di Fiandra. The conclusion then is unavoidable that the luteolum Napolitanum was not the yellow oxide of lead. In the French translation of Pozzo’s Treatise on Fresco-painting⁴ the term luteolum Napolitanum is very properly translated Jaune de Naples, and luteolum Belgicum by Jaune de Flandres. In other parts of Jombert’s edition of the ‘Elémens de Peinture,’⁵ two kinds of massicot, the yellow or golden and the pale or white, are mentioned; but they are not identified with jaune de Naples, which is mentioned as a distinct colour. The Italian translator of Pozzo’s treatise¹ renders luteolum Napolitanum by giallolino di fornace, which he says is called giallolino di Napoli, and luteolum Belgicum by giallolino di Francia. This writer does not appear to have been aware that giallolino di fornace and giallolino di Fiandra were synonymous. Giallolino di Francia appears to be a mistake for giallolino di Fiandra.

³ The Treatise on Fresco Painting, appended to his work on Perspective, published at Rome, 1693—1702.

⁴ See Jombert’s ed. of the Elémens de Peinture, by De Piles, Paris, 1766.

⁵ Elémens de Peinture, pp. 252, 286, &c.

¹ At the end of the Abecedario Pittorico (Naples, 1733).

Félibien,² Pomet,³ Pozzo,⁴ and the author of the article “Fresque” in the Encyclopédie describe the pigment jaune de Naples as a natural production found near mines of sulphur, which is used in fresco-painting, although it is not so good as the colour formed of ochre and white. M. d’Arclais de Montamy, in his Treatise on the Colours for Enamel Painting, describes it as a stone of a pale or deep yellow colour, which appears to be composed of a species of yellow sand, loosely combined. He believes it to be the production of a volcano. He adds that Naples yellow may be considered as saffron of Mars, first produced by a volcano, and that then the colour was brought to perfection by remaining in the earth, or as a ferruginous substance, the vitrification of which was afterwards decomposed.⁵ Cennini’s description⁶ of this pigment is as follows: – “There is a yellow colour called giallolino, which is artificial and very compact. It is as heavy as a stone, and difficult to break. This colour is used in fresco, and lasts for ever (that is on walls and on tempera pictures). It must be ground like the preceding with water. It is difficult to grind; and before grinding, as it is very difficult to pulverize, it should be broken in a bronze mortar, in the same way as the lapis amatito. When employed in painting, it is a very beautiful yellow; and with this colour and other mixtures which I will describe to you, you may paint beautiful foliage and herbage. And I have been informed that this colour is a real stone, produced in volcanoes; and it is for this reason that I said it is formed artificially, but not in the chemical laboratory.”

² De l’Architecture, &c., 1697, p. 292.

³ Histoire Générale des Drogues.

⁴ See the French translation of this Treatise in Jombert’s edition of the Elémens de Peinture, by De Piles, p. 191.

⁵ Treatise on Painting and the Composition of Colours, translated from the French of M. Constant de Massoul. London, 1797. P. 137.

⁶ Trattato, cap. xlvi.

From this account it is evident that Cennini is describing a native mineral which he considers to be produced by volcanic agency – “Però ti dico sia color artificiato, ma non di archimia.” The accordance of this description with that of the jaune de Naples just mentioned is apparent. It is therefore certain that there was a native yellow pigment found in the neighbourhood of volcanoes, the nature of which was not well understood, which was known by the name of giallolino or giallolino di Napoli and jaune de Naples. This is the opinion also of Branchi and Watin.¹ In this case therefore giallolino and giallolino di Napoli (Naples yellow) were really synonymous. There is also an artificial pigment called Naples yellow or jaune de Naples, which, by some authors, has been considered to consist of an earth coloured with weld (gaude, Reseda luteola) and by others to be composed of the oxides of lead and antimony with other ingredients. The last is the general opinion, and there appears to be no doubt the modern pigment of this name is composed of these oxides.² The vegetable pigment above mentioned is the arzica of Cennini, the Le Begue, the Bolognese MS., and Borghini, and the *ancorca* of Palomino.³

¹ Lettera di Branchi, p. 12.

² See Mérimée, de la Peinture à l’Huile, p. 110; Marcucci, Saggio Analitico de’ Colori, p. 66; Lettera di Branchi, p. 12; Bachhoffner, Chemistry as applied to the Arts, &c.

³ Indice de los Terminos Primitivos de la Pintura —appended to Palomino’s Museo Pictorico.

I consider it therefore established that there were three kinds of giallolino employed by the old Italian Masters, namely: –

1. A native mineral yellow pigment known by the names of giallolino, giallolino di Napoli, jaune de Naples, luteolum Napolitanum.

2. An artificial pigment which was composed of the yellow protoxide of lead, and which was called giallolino, giallolino fino, giallolino di fornace di Fiandra, giallolino di fornace, giallolino di Fiandra, luteolum Belgicum, genuli (the last is a Spanish term) and massicot, of which there were two varieties; namely, the golden or yellow and the white or pale massicot.

3. An artificial pigment made at Venice composed of giallolino fino and a certain kind of “giallo di vetro,” or vitreous yellow, for which a recipe is given in the Bolognese MS. No. 273, in the Venetian dialect, and which appears to have been the hornaza of the Spaniards.

I consider it also established that there are two kinds of Naples yellow, namely: –

1. A native mineral pigment found in the neighbourhood of volcanoes, the nature of which is not accurately known, and which was called giallolino, giallolino di Napoli, and jaune de Naples, and which is synonymous with the first kind of giallolino above mentioned.

2. An artificial pigment now in use composed of the oxides of lead and antimony, called also giallo di Napoli, jaune de Naples, and Naples yellow, which was not known to the old Italian artists.

From the above statements it will be seen that it is scarcely possible to determine which of the three pigments called “giallolino” is alluded to when the term occurs alone in writers on art. It is certain, however, that one or other of these pigments was much used by the Italian masters. Giallolino was recommended by Lionardo da Vinci¹ to be mixed with white lead and lake for flesh tints. There is reason to suppose it was also used by Raphael, since it is mentioned in an account of payments for colours found on the back of a drawing by the great painter preserved in the Academy at Venice, and supposed to be in his hand-writing.

¹ Trattato, cap. 353.

It was seldom found among the colours of Venetian pictures which have been analysed. It is stated on the authority of Boschini¹ (who mentions that the pigment was not generally approved by the Venetians) to have been used by Giacomo Bassano and Paolo Veronese, and it is also enumerated among the pigments named by Biondo.²

¹ Ricche Minere. ² Della Pittura.

Massicot is however frequently disapproved as a pigment, especially when mixed with white.³ We have the evidence of Cennini that the native pigment called giallolino was a durable colour. Pacheco remarks that he has employed genuli, which has surpassed in brilliancy and beauty the best orpiment, excelling it in durability; he adds that it is preserved in water like white, and is very drying.

³ See Mr. Eastlake’s ‘Materials,’ p. 440.

Giallo in Vetro, or Giallo di Vetro. – Borghini states⁴ that this pigment, which is used in fresco, is made in the glass furnaces, and he recommends that it should be purchased ready made. It is probable, as has been before observed, that this pigment was of the same nature as the vetrio giallo mentioned in the Bolognese MS. No. 272 to have been composed of tin and lead calcined.

⁴ Riposo, p. 166.

The ochres, so remarkable for their durability and variety, will always be among the most valuable yellow pigments. Many varieties are enumerated by writers on art, among which may be mentioned arzica, ochre de ru, mottée de sil, &c. The best kinds are sold in Italy in the lump, and Volpato recommends⁵ that such should be preferred to those which are sold in powder, because the first are in the natural state and no other material is mixed with them; “for,” he continues, “the vendors are accustomed to falsify everything.”

⁵ P. 745.

During the middle ages, an imitation of the Attic ochre of Pliny was in use. This pigment, to which the name of “Sillacetus” was given, was a preparation of white chalk or gesso, saturated with the colour extracted from the wall-flower¹ (Viola lutea).

¹ Table of Synonymes, p. 36.

Vegetable yellow pigments were of two kinds—those which were precipitated on a white earth, such as the different kinds of yellow lake, and those which were used as transparent colours, without any other preparation than that of expressing and inspissating the juice of certain plants. Of the latter kind were saffron, the zafferano of Cennini, and aloes; the latter was chiefly used for colouring varnishes, or for heightening the colour of verdigris in the manner recommended by Lionardo da Vinci.²

² Trattato, cap. 120.

Giallo santo was a kind of yellow lake, which was made from various plants. It was sometimes prepared from the berries of the buckthorn³ (spincervino), sometimes from the flowers of the yellow goat’s-beard (barba di becco), sometimes from the flowers of the yellow broom, sometimes from weld or dyer’s weed: the latter is the arzica of Cennini and the Bolognese MS. The sillacetus of the Table of Synonymes was a yellow lake.

³ P. 708.

The French call pigments of this description “stil de grain,” and include under them not only those pigments which are of a pure yellow colour, but such as incline to green. The English term for this class of pigments is or was “pink.” Thus we have “Dutch pink,” “Italian pink,” “brown pink,” &c.

Volpato observes⁴ that giallo santo should be of a fine colour, that in grinding it should become very liquid, so as to require but very little oil to temper it, and that it should dry very quickly, which is a sign that it is pure; but if it hardens and requires a great deal of oil in grinding, this is a proof that it contains dust and other impurities, and in this case it dries slowly and fades on the pictures.

⁴ P. 744.

As another test, he directs¹ that the colour should be exposed to the sun; if it faded, it was bad. He also mentions that it should not be kept in water. Giallo santo appears to have been extensively used by the Italians, and although it is included among the colours which Boschini says the Venetians “detested like the plague,” it appears, on his own evidence, that it was employed by Giacomo Bassano in shading yellow drapery. The pigment is also mentioned by Biondo, by Armenini, by Borghini, and in the Paduan MS. Malvasia says that it was used by Tiarini and Cavedone.

¹ P. 744.

Saffron, zafferano, the crocus of the middle ages, is produced from the flowers of the crocus. Peter de S. Audemar informs us that saffron was produced in France in his time; but he says the French saffron was not good; he mentions that this drug was imported from Spain and Italy, and that the best kind was brought from Sicily, and was called coriscos. The plant is cultivated extensively in England in the neighbourhood of Saffron-Walden, and the name of the place is derived from this circumstance. It was brought into England from the Levant in the reign of Edward III., and the manner in which it was introduced is thus described by Hakluyt:^{2 –} “It is reported at Saffron-Walden, that a pilgrim, purposing to do good to his country, stole a head of saffron, and hid the same in his palmer’s staff, which he had made hollow before on purpose, and so he brought this root into this realm with venture of his life; for if he had been taken, by the law of the country from whence it came, he had died for the fact.”

² See Beckmann’s Inventions, vol. i. p. 179, n.

To these vegetable pigments may be added gamboge, which is a gum resin that flows from the Hebradendron Cambogioides. It derives its name from Kamboia, a river in Siam, in the vicinity of which the gum is obtained in abundance. It was certainly in use in the Venetian territories at the period when the Paduan MS. was written, and is believed to have been employed by Paolo Veronese. It was sometimes purified by being ground up with lemon juice and roche alum.¹

¹ P. 660.

Gamboge is prepared for painting in oil by depriving it of its gum. Marcucci recommends² the following method: – “Gamboge of the finest colour is to be ground with water; it is then to be put into a china cup, and a sufficient quantity of water is to be poured on it to cover it twice its own height; after being left thus two days, the supernatant water is to be decanted, and the resin which remains at the bottom of the water is to be dried. When quite dry, a quantity of spirit of turpentine sufficient to cover it is to be poured over it, and the cup is to be placed upon warm ashes until the resin is quite dissolved and incorporated with the turpentine. A little nut oil is then to be added, and it is to be preserved for use.” Marcucci adds, “this is excellent for glazing yellow and green draperies; for the latter it must be mixed with ultramarine.” Other modes of preparation are mentioned by Mr. Eastlake in his recent work.³

² Saggio, &c., p. 135. ³ Materials, &c., p. 442.

It appears from the Brussels MS.⁴ that gamboge was in use in France in 1635. Palomino remarks⁵ that this pigment, which he calls “Gutiambar,” was employed to glaze yellow draperies, and that it dried so badly as to require the addition of the common drying oil.

⁴ P. 784. ⁵ Museo Pictorico, vol. ii. p. 53.

A recipe for an artificial pigment somewhat analogous to the modern pigment called “Gallstone” appears in the second book of Eraclius. It consisted of the gall of a large fish precipitated on a white earth. It was said to have resembled orpiment in colour.

Aloes. – The inspissated juice of the aloë spicata. The plant is a native of Africa. The finest kind of aloes has a brilliant reddish-brown colour, and is translucent at the edges of the fragmented pieces; its fracture is smooth and conchoidal, its odour aromatic and rather agreeable, its powder deep gold colour, its taste intensely bitter and nauseous. But such is rarely found in trade; it is generally opaque, of a dull brown, when it is called Hepatic aloes, often passing into black, when it is denominated Caballine aloes. It appears to be a mixture of gum, extractive, and a little resin. It is nearly soluble in boiling water, but as the solution cools, some resin and altered extractive are thrown down; the alkalies and their carbonates form with it permanent solutions, and proof spirit dissolves and retains it with only a slight precipitation of resin. Caballine aloes are mentioned by Lionardo da Vinci¹ as an improvement to the colour of verdigris, and he recommends its solution in warm spirit (aqua vitæ).

¹ Trattato, cap. 120.

Orange-coloured Pigments.

The ochreous pigment called Arzica in the Table of Synonymes, affords, when burnt, an orange-coloured pigment, which is likely to prove a valuable addition to the palette.

Orange or red orpiment – realgar. – This pigment, as well as yellow orpiment, is sometimes found native. It is also prepared artificially by melting it in a crucible over a charcoal fire, and when cool, grinding it.²

² Paduan MS., p. 662.

Burnt or orange orpiment is mentioned by Borghini³ and by Lomazzo,¹ who observes with regard to this pigment, which was said to be of the colour of gold, “and this is the alchemy of the Venetian painters.” Matthioli makes a similar remark; after describing the manner of converting the yellow orpiment into red by burning it, he says, that every one may provide himself with the latter by inquiring for it in the “calle” (lanes or narrow streets) of Venice, where colours are sold. It is probable that red orpiment was used by some of the Venetian artists,² since a colour resembling it is frequently seen on pictures of this school, particularly on those of Bonifazio. A few ounces of a pigment of the colour of orange orpiment was given to me at Milan by an artist who told me it was used by Titian, and that he had procured it at an old colour-shop in Venice. He called the colour rauschel minerale, and said that he had shown the pigment to a colourman at Bergamo who knew it by that name. From the name, therefore, it may be conjectured, that the pigment was native red orpiment or realgar, and that the name by which it was known to this artist was intended for rüschegel or rauschgelb. This pigment was called jalde or oropimente quemado by the Spaniards,³ and sandaraca by the Greeks.⁴ It is considered to be less durable than yellow orpiment, and extremely corrosive, for Mérimée relates⁵ that where it had been employed on flower-pieces, it appears to have corroded the priming. The term sandaraca was also applied during the middle ages to red lead, or minium.⁶ With the artists of this period it must have been a favourite colour; if we may judge from the numerous recipes for preparing it which occur in old MSS. on art, and from its being mentioned so much more frequently than vermilion. It was purified by washing it in a horn with wine and water.¹ When to be used on walls it was to be mixed with gum water, when on parchment with egg, but when on wood with oil. For illuminating books it was frequently mixed with vermilion.²

³ Riposo, p. 166.

¹ Trattato, p. 191.

² Marcucci is of this opinion: see Saggio, &c., p. 226–228. According to this writer, it was also used by Fra Bartolomeo: see Saggio, &c., p. 215.

³ Palomino, vol. ii. p. 66.

⁴ Diosc., lib. v. cap. 80, by Matt., p. 1428.

⁵ De la Peinture à l’Huile, p. 124.

⁶ See Table of Synonymes, p. 36. S. Audemar, p. 141.

¹ Le Begue, p. 143, 295. ² Ibid., p. 141, 297.

It is mentioned by many Italian writers on painting,³ and has been found on Venetian pictures of the best period. Boschini informs⁴ us that it was used by Pordenone, by Paolo Veronese,⁵ and by Maffeo Verona. Sig. Pietro Palmaroli states⁶ that it was employed by Titian. According to Marcucci, it was also used by Fra Bartolomeo.⁷

³ Biondo, c. 20. Lomazzo, Trattato, pp. 191, 193. Borghini, p. 166. Volpato, p. 745. Paduan MS., p. 655.

⁴ Ricche Minere. ⁵ See also Marcucci, Saggio, &c., p. 228.

⁶ Note to Marcucci, p. 226. ⁷ Saggio, &c., p. 217.

Lomazzo states⁸ that it was sometimes mixed with lake. Lebrun recommends⁹ it in painting flesh, and says, “If some minium be mixed with white lead and a little fine lake, a most beautiful carnation tint will be formed, as I know from experience.” Bisagno also observes¹⁰ that in order to make vermilion dry, a little minium may be mixed with it. The general opinion seems to be that minium should be used alone, and according to the observations of the Venetian restorers of pictures always with varnish.

⁸ Trattato, p. 195. ⁹ Brussels MS., p. 820, 822.

¹⁰ Trattato della Pittura, p. 206.

Palomino alludes¹¹ more than once to its want of durability; he says that, “after a time it throws upon the surface a kind of salt which destroys the juice of the picture.” Perhaps this defect may be corrected by purifying the red lead in the manner described by De Mayerne,¹² who observes, “If you extract the salt from minium by washing it with distilled vinegar the remainder does not fade and dries very well.” When minium is thus purified, it appears to resemble the pigment formerly known by the name of Saturnine red; which consisted merely of minium washed in large vessels of distilled water, which was changed every forty-four hours, till the surface was quite free from extraneous matter, and the colour ceased to blacken at the edge of the vessel. The colour was afterwards purified with spirits of wine.¹ Pacheco mentions² that native red lead (azarcon de la tierra) was used in his time in tempera painting.

¹¹ Vol. i. p. 56; vol. ii. p. 52.

¹² See Mr. Eastlake’s ‘Materials,’ &c., p. 452.

¹ Constant de Massoul, p. 205.

² Tratado, p. 345. Native minium occurs amorphous and pulverulent, but when examined by the lens exhibits a crystalline structure. It is supposed to be an oxide of lead, and to arise from the decomposition of galena, in which it commonly occurs. Phillips, Min., p. 337.

Red Pigments.

A great variety of native red pigments have always been used in painting. They all owe their colour to iron.³ Of this kind were the sinopia of Pliny and Cennini, the terra rossa d’Inghilterra, terra rossa di Spagna, Majolica, ferretta di Spagna, almagre, Pavonazo, Indian red, light red, Venetian red, hæmatite, lapis amatito, sanguine, terra rubea, brunus, brown red, mottée de sil, red ochres.

³ The different kinds of red earth used in painting are fully described in the Introduction to my work on Fresco Painting, pp. xiii.–xxxiv.

The terra rossa d’Inghilterra, so frequently mentioned by Italian writers, is still sold in Italy, where it is imported from England.

The colour called Venetian red is procured from Verona. Besides its use in painting, this earth was formerly much employed in making the bricks of which many of the old buildings in Venice are constructed. The fine colour of these bricks, heightened perhaps by their contrast with the green waters of the narrow canals, can scarcely have escaped the observation of travellers.

Hill, the translator of Theophrastus, mentions that what is sold in the shops as Indian red is a native red earth [hæmatite] found in England. He states (p. 122, n. 9), “I have a specimen of some from the Forest of Dean in Gloucestershire, very little inferior to the sort brought from Ormuz in the Persian Gulf, which is so much esteemed and used by our painters under the name of Indian red. It is indeed so like, both in colour and quality, that it is used for it, as the people employed in taking it up informed me, and sent to London to be sold under its name. On comparing it with some of the true Persian kind, which I had from the East Indies, I find it of a paler colour, but of a much finer texture.” The real Indian red has also a sparkling appearance, which is wanting in the common sort.

The Sinopia of Pliny and Cennini was, as has been before mentioned, a red earth originally brought from Sinope, but medieval writers north of the Alps gave the name of Sinopia, or Sinopis de Mellana, to a kind of lake made either of the gum of the ivy ground with vinegar and mixed with wheat flour, or of the gum of ivy and madder.¹ Sinopis is sometimes written for cinnabar, as in p. 68, where it is said to be made of mercury. The term Vermiculus is used by Le Begue² to denote the red colour called “coccus,” which was undoubtedly the coccus of the ancients. It is synonymous with kermes.³ In the Bolognese MS. it is put for vermilion.⁴ Cinnabar, or vermilion, is of two kinds, natural and artificial. Both are stated to have been used by the Italians and Spaniards in painting, but the former was preferred for fresco-painting, although the latter was of a much finer colour. If we may judge from the recipes in old treatises, the medieval artists employed the latter only. Directions for refining and purifying it are given in the Bolognese MS., the Paduan MS.,¹ and in the recipes at the end of the Abecedario Pittorico.

¹ Le Begue, p. 145. ² Table of Synonymes, p. 38.

³ Matth. 1085. ⁴ P. 449.

¹ See pp. 500, 660, and 664.

Lebrun observes,² that vermilion is frequently adulterated with lime; to detect this he recommends that some should be put on the blade of a knife and heated; if good, it would, when cold, be of the same colour as before; but if one side of the knife remained black, and then became brown and dark, this would be a proof of its impurity.

² Brussels MS., p. 814.

Native cinnabar does not appear to be mentioned by writers on art previous to the latter part of the 16th century, when it is spoken of together with the artificial by Lomazzo³ and Borghini.⁴ It is also mentioned and described by the Spanish writers Cespides, Pacheco,⁵ Palomino,⁶ and by Félibien.⁷ I was informed by a Venetian artist that both native and artificial, or, as he called the latter, Dutch cinnabar, had been found among the colours of Venetian pictures which he had procured to be analysed. It is difficult to imagine how native cinnabar can be distinguished by chemical analysis from artificial, since mercury combines with sulphur in two proportions only, forming the protosulphuret which is black, and the bisulphuret (vermilion or cinnabar) which is red.⁸ The difficulty may perhaps be explained by a knowledge of the fact that the name of “mineral cinnabar” was given by the Italians to the hard red hæmatite. Agricola says, that the stone which he calls schist (after Pliny) resembled in appearance minium, and that the painters called it cinnabar; that when calcined it imitated the colour of cinnabar. This is confirmed by Borghini,¹ who states that lapis amatita (the hæmatite) is called by some persons “mineral cinnabar.” Baldinucci² and Alberti³ make the same remark; and Pungelone⁴ mentions a design by Correggio, in which may be seen several “pentimenti” drawn with “matita, comunemente detta cinabro minerale.” It is not, therefore, unreasonable to conclude, that the mineral cinnabar said to have been found on Venetian pictures may have been the colour procured from the hard red hæmatite burnt; at the same time it must be acknowledged, that if the pigment so called had actually been subjected to analysis, its composition must have been settled beyond a doubt, since no chemist could have mistaken a combination of mercury and sulphur for an ore of iron. Vermilion has been used by all Italian and Spanish painters. Lomazzo⁵ and Pacheco⁶ direct it to be sometimes employed in flesh tints. Its use by Flemish writers in painting has been mentioned by Mr. Eastlake.⁷ Cennini recommends⁸ that cinnabar should be purchased in the mass and never bruised or ground, because it was frequently adulterated with minium or pounded bricks.

³ Trattato, p. 191, 192.

⁴ Riposo, p. 167. ⁵ Tratado, p. 342.

⁶ Museo Pictorico, vol. i. p. 359; vol. ii. pp. 53, 149, 340.

⁷ De la Peinture, p. 299.

⁸ The atomic composition is stated to be as follows:
The protosulphuret – 1 atom mercury 200+1 atom sulphur 16=216.
The bisulphuret – 1 atom mercury 200+2 atoms sulphur 32=232.
According to Phillips (Min., p. 358), the composition of native cinnabar is quicksilver 84.5 – sulphur 14.75.

¹ Riposo, p. 168. ² Voc. Dis.

³ Diz. Enc., tit. Cinabro minerale, and Lapis.

⁴ Life of Correggio, vol. i. p. 174.

⁵ Trattato, p. 312. ⁶ Tratado, p. 386. ⁷ ‘Materials,’ &c., p. 443.

⁸ Trattato, cap. xl.

Lakes. – The red lakes used by the Italian painters were either of animal or of vegetable origin, or a mixture of both kinds.

To the first class belonged the lake produced from kermes or grana, the most common form of which was the lacca di cimatura, lac lake, and cochineal lake. To the second class belonged the lake made from Brazil wood or verzino. The third description was composed of a mixture of the first and second kinds of lake.

Kermes or Grana. – The dead bodies of the female insect of the coccus ilicis, which lives upon the leaves of the prickly oak. It appears to have been known from the time of Moses, and has been employed from an early period in India to dye silk. It was called by the Greeks coccus baphica, by the Latins granum infectorium, by Pliny coccigranum, by the Arabs charmen, kermes, and chermes, by the Germans scharlack ber, by the Spaniards grana para teñir and grana in grano, by the French vermillon, and by the Italians grana or grana da tentori.¹

¹ See Matthioli, p. 1085.

The kermes grains or berries, whence the name grana, are mentioned (probably as a dye) in the Lucca MS. and the Clavicula² under the name of coccarin, and in the latter MS. they are identified with cinnaberin and vermiculum: “Vermiculi tereni qui in foliis ceri nascitur – coccarin nascitur, sicut supra dictum est, in foliis ceri.” They are constantly to be traced as a dye during the middle ages in the South of Europe, and are noticed in a commercial agreement between Bologna and Ferrara as early as 1193, and in the Statutes of Marseilles for the year 1287. At Montpellier no other dye was permitted to be used for the finest red stuffs.³ In the fourteenth century Florence⁴ and Venice⁵ were celebrated for their red stuffs dyed with kermes, which the latter city exported to other parts of Italy. The red stuffs dyed with kermes or grana found their way into the towns of the North of Europe. Pierce Plowman (whose ‘Vision’ is supposed to have been written in 1350), in describing the dress of a lady richly clad, says that her robe was of “scarlet in grain;” that is, scarlet dyed with grana, the best and most durable red dye. The import of the words “in grain” was afterwards changed, and the term was applied generally to all colours with which cloths were dyed which were considered to be permanent; in this sense it is still used.

² See Mappæ Clavicula, p. 41.

³ Depping, vol. i. pp. 241, 293, 300. ⁴ Ibid., vol. i. pp. 234, 235.

⁵ Filiasi, Saggio, &c., pp. 153, 154 n. Hellot (L’Art de Teinture, Paris, 1701, pp. 244, 264) said this red colour was called “Ecarlatte de graine,” formerly “Ecarlatte de France,” and now “Ecarlatte de Venise,” because it was much used there, and more was made there than any other place. He adds, “the red draperies of the figures in the old Brussels tapestries were dyed with this ingredient, and their colour, which in some of these tapestries is 200 years old, has lost nothing of its vivacity.” In his time kermes was only used to dye wool for tapestry.

The idea of preparing a pigment directly from the kermes grains appears not to have suggested itself to the early painters, who employed the rather indirect process of boiling the clippings or shearings¹ of cloth dyed with kermes in ley, and then precipitating the colour with alum. The colouring matter, combined with alumina, was well washed to remove the salts, and after being dried on a porous stone or brick was preserved in small cakes. The pigment so produced was the “lacca di cimatura di grana da rosato,” commonly called “lacca di cimatura,” which appears to have been in common use as a red pigment until the seventeenth century.² Neri is probably the first author who gives a recipe for a red pigment prepared directly from the kermes. The method he recommends was, he said, invented by himself at Pisa.³ Other recipes for lake from the kermes berries are contained in the Paduan MS.⁴ Lake from “quermes” was used in France for oil and miniature painting in 1682.⁵

¹ These consisted of the loose wool, which was removed from the face of the cloth, in order to produce a smooth surface.

² See Cennini, Trattato, cap. 44; Le Begue, p. 91; Bol. MS., p. 433, &c.; Secreti di D. Alessio, part i. p. 103; Canepario, p. 335.

³ Arte Vetraria, lib. vii. cap. 119. ⁴ P. 703.

⁵ See Traité de Mignature de C. Ballard, p. 14.

As a dye the kermes was considered among the most durable of all colours. M. Hellot says,⁶ “From the experiments which have been made with the scarlet dye from kermes, as well by exposure to the sun as by different re-agents, it has been found that there is neither a better nor more durable colour, and yet it is used nowhere but at Venice.” This author attributes the solidity of the colour of the kermes to its being nourished on a shrub possessing astringent properties, which have been communicated to the insect; for he remarks “that all barks, roots, woods, fruits, and other substances of an astringent nature, furnish durable colours for dyeing.”¹ The Italian painters were aware of this property possessed by astringent substances of rendering colours more durable, and we find accordingly that assafœtida,² a handful of the bark of the white beech, or three or four small branches of the Lombardy poplar, were boiled with the lake in order to make the colour more permanent.³ The bark of the white beech was considered best for rose colours; the practice was not confined to the red from kermes, but extended also to madder lake.

⁶ L’Art de Teinture, p. 264.

¹ L’Art de Teinture, p. 271. ² Bol. MS., pp. 435, 442.

³ Traité de la Peinture au Pastel. Paris, 1788.

Cremisi, Cremisino. – Although there appears to be no doubt that chermes and grana were really synonymous, yet it also appears that the term cremisino was applied in Italy during the time of Matthioli to the colour procured from certain berries or grains attached to the roots of the pimpinella,⁴ as well as to cochineal. Matthioli adds,⁵ “There is now brought from the West Indies by way of Spain a new kind of cremisino; and as great quantities of it are made in Italy, it has lowered the price of silks of this colour.” This cremisino from the West Indies, brought by way of Spain, can be no other than cochineal; it is therefore certain that it was well known and abundant in Italy at least as early as 1549, the date of Matthioli’s work. This may also be considered to be proved by the ‘Tariffa Perpetua di Zuane Mariani,’¹ in which cremese is mentioned as well as “grana” and “polvere di grana.” Both are also spoken of in the ‘Plicto.’² These notices are certainly evidence that the terms were not synonymous. Matthioli further states that at the time his work was written a lake was made for painters from the cremese or cremisino, and Canepario³ carefully distinguishes karbisini or cremesi. Cochineal lake is mentioned in the Paduan MS.⁴ In this treatise it is stated to have been prepared for painting by boiling it with lemon-juice, garlic-juice, and burnt alum; this treatment would probably communicate to it a scarlet tint. The anonymous author of the ‘Trattato di Miniatura’⁵ states that the colour called “lacca fina di Venezia” was made from cochineal after the carmine had been extracted, and that this pigment was made at Paris.

⁴ Poterium sanguisorba. The Burnet, probably the Bruneta of the Sloane MS. No. 1754. ⁵ Matt., p. 1085.

¹ Published at Venezia, 1567. ² Venice, 1557.

³ De Atramentis diversi Coloribus, pp. 326, 336.

⁴ Pp. 661, 699, 703, 709.

⁵ This work, which was published at Turin in 1758, appears to be a translation of Ballard’s Traité de Mignature. In this last work, carmino is stated to be made of cochineal and rocou (Bixa orellana, an American plant).

The cochineal insect is produced on different species of cactus. The most perfect variety is that which breeds on the cactus coccinillifer. When the Spaniards first arrived in Mexico they saw the cochineal employed by the native inhabitants in communicating colours to some ornaments and in dyeing cloth. Struck with its beautiful colour, they transmitted accounts of it to the Spanish ministry, who, about the year 1523, ordered Cortes to direct his attention to the propagation of this substance. The pigment prepared from cochineal, though extremely beautiful, is not so durable as those from lac and kermes. It is, however, worthy of trial whether it may not be rendered more durable by boiling it with some astringent bark, as recommended with regard to kermes lake.

Lac, Lacca. – The term lacca occurs in the Lucca MS., and also in the Clavicula; but it does not appear whether it is used to signify gum lac or the juice of the ivy, which is described by Eraclius in the chapter entitled “De Edera et Lacca.” These notices appear rather to refer to a dye than to a colour for painting. In 1220 the Catalans and Provençals imported lac into their ports for the purpose of dyeing.¹ As a pigment lac was known in Italy at least as early as 1409, since recipes for making lake from it are given in the book lent by Fra Dionisio to Alcherius. Other recipes are contained in the Bolognese and Paduan MSS. and in that of Fra Fortunato of Rovigo.

Lac does not appear to have been mentioned in the ‘Tariffa Perpetua’ of Mariani, but it was used in dyeing at Venice in 1557, when the ‘Plicto’ was published; and it is among the articles enumerated in the ‘Tariffa’ of Bartolommeo del Paxi de Venezia.² Lac lake was in use at Venice in Matthioli’s time, and even as late as that of Caneparius.³ It was also in use at Naples in 1733.⁴

Madder, Rubea Tinctoria, Robbia overo Roza di Fiandra, Sandis, Granza, Garancia, Warantia, “Rubea Major, id est Waranz.”—A red pigment prepared from this root is mentioned in the Sloane MS., No. 1754, and in that of S. Audemar,⁵ the same recipe being introduced into both treatises. In the former work it appears also to be alluded to under the term gorma: – “Gorma quedam herba est que trahit in purpuram et affertur de quadam regione et hec rosa dicitur.” Rosa, as has been already mentioned, is synonymous with Robbia.¹ It is possible that the menesch of Theophilus may have been madder, since mnitsch is the Indian name for this plant.² In the third book of Eraclius³ madder is enumerated among colours for painting; it is also mentioned in the Table of Synonymes.⁴ From the time the latter work was written until that of Neri all traces of madder as a pigment seem to be lost. This author gives⁵ a recipe for madder and verzino lake; he remarks that in making these lakes a larger proportion of madder or verzino must be allowed than of the cimatura, because the colour afforded by the two former is not so deep as the latter. He concludes by observing, “In this manner you will obtain very fine lake for painters at less expense than that made from ‘chermisi;’ the madder lake especially is very beautiful and pleasing to the eye.” From these expressions it may almost be inferred that Neri was recommending what he considered to be a new pigment; had it been known to painters, it would have been unnecessary to advert to the beauty of the colour. With the exception of Neri the pigment does not appear to be mentioned by Italian writers until 1733, when madder lake is noticed among other lakes in the recipes for colours at the end of the ‘Abecedario Pittorico.’ The French writers are equally silent on this subject until 1788, when the anonymous author of the ‘Traité de la Peinture au Pastel’ observes, “Madder is, of all the plants known in our climates, that which yields the most durable red, and the addition of the juice of the poplar makes it still more permanent. The juice of the bark of the white beech is still better for rose colours.” Constant de Massoul⁶ also mentions madder lake, which he says is less likely to change than any other.

¹ Capmany, Memorias, &c.; and Statuts de Marseille, cited by Depping, vol. i. p. 144.

² Venezia, 1503.

³ De Atramentis, p. 331. This work was published in 1660.

⁴ See recipes at the end of the Abecedario, published at Naples.

⁵ Le Begue, p. 145.

¹ See the ‘Plicto.’ ² Nemnich, Polyglotten Lexicon.

³ P. 249, 251. ⁴ P. 34.

⁵ Arte Vetraria, Firenze, 1612, lib. vii. cap. 118.

⁶ Art of Painting, p. 208.

Madder is enumerated among the pigments which it is stated were used by the great Venetian painters.

Madder has been used in dyeing from time immemorial, and by the Orientals as well as the inhabitants of Europe. It was cultivated and used extensively for dyeing in the neighbourhood of Avignon and Marseilles, and it is mentioned in the statutes of the latter city as early as 1287.¹ It grew wild all over Italy, and that produced in the neighbourhood of Rome was at one time much esteemed. In the middle of the sixteenth century Dutch or Flemish madder was preferred to the Italian,² since the former only was imported into Venice.

¹ Depping, Histoire, &c., vol. i. p. 293. ² See ‘Plicto.’

Verzino Lake, or Lake from Brazil Wood. – The identity of these pigments is fully proved from various passages in these MSS.,³ and the numerous recipes which have been transmitted to us by writers on the arts show the extent to which verzino lake was formerly used. The dyewood from which the pigment was prepared was known to the Hebrews, as appears from the dictionary of the Rabbi David Kimchi, entitled ‘Book of Roots,’ and was called by the Arabs “albakim” or “bacam.”⁴

³ See Le Begue, p. 53: Bol. MS., p. 441. See also Mr. Eastlake’s ‘Materials,’ &c., p. 114, and Caneparius, p. 297.

⁴ Dict. Universel, Français et Latin, vulgairement appelé Dictionnaire de Trévoux, Art. Brésil. Paris, 1732.

Verzino Colombino. – Marco Polo states that the best verzino grew in the island of Ceylon, whence Depping supposes that the term “Verzino Colombino” was derived from Colombo, the capital of that island. The colour to which Pierre Pomet⁵ and Marcucci⁶ give this name was composed not of verzino, but of the clippings of scarlet cloth; the former author remarks that the preparation of this lake is attended with much difficulty, and that it is seldom conducted successfully out of Venice, because the Venetians add to the alumina a very white earth, which causes the lake to become very light (in weight). A pigment of this description is still sold at Venice in masses of a pink colour and powdery texture, which breaks easily and is remarkably light in weight. It is said this pigment should be well burnt. A recipe for “Laque Colombine,” composed of Brazil or other dyewood, will be found in Ballard’s ‘Traité de Mignature.’ Verzino or Brazil wood is not the only wood mentioned in these MSS. which furnished red colouring matter. Red sandal-wood,¹ Campeachy or logwood, are also mentioned; and it appears from Ballard’s ‘Traité de Mignature’ that when that work was published the Brazil wood of America called by the French “le Brésillet de Fernambouc” (cæsalpinia Brasiliensis) was used in making lake instead of the Oriental Brazil wood, or verzino (cæsalpinia Sappan).

⁵ Histoire Générale des Drogues, vol. i. p. 34.

⁶ Saggio, &c., p. 125; and see also Trattato di Miniatura, p. 29.

¹ P. 517.

Venetian Lake. – It is difficult to say what this pigment really was. The anonymous author of the ‘Trattato di Miniatura’ before mentioned states that the “lacca fina di Venezia” was composed of cochineal after the carmine had been extracted. Pierre Pomet² says that it was made of cochineal, Brésil of Fernambouc, burnt alum, arsenic, and Egyptian natron, or white soda. According to Palomino³ Venetian lake was composed of gum lac and grana, or cochineal.

² Histoire Générale des Drogues, vol. i. p. 33.

³ Museo Pictorico, vol. ii. p. 340. ⁴ Arte Vetraria, lib. vii. c. 116.

Florentine Lake. – The old pigment was probably the same as lacca di cimatura, since this was the principal kind of lake described by Neri,⁴ whose work was published at Florence, although he appears to have resided at Pisa. The modern pigment of this name is made of cochineal and other ingredients.⁵

⁵ Dizionario delle Drogue, di Chevalier e Richard, Tradizione da F. du Pré, Venezia, 1830.

Lake from Ivy. – The medieval painters were accustomed to prepare a red colour from the juice or gum which in warm countries flowed from the ivy in the month of March. This colour differed from the lakes before described, inasmuch as the juice or gum was inspissated by boiling, and not precipitated upon a white earth.

The Purple of the Ancients is mentioned in the Table of Synonymes.¹ It is also mentioned in the passages borrowed from Vitruvius in the third book of Eraclius.²

¹ P. 25, 33. ² P. 251.

It has been observed that the characteristic of the Venetian school was the free and unsparing use of a powerful blue, I would add of a very beautiful and cool lake colour also, which in all pictures of the Venetian school, from the Vivarini to Tintoretto, invariably retains its colour. The Venetian lakes always incline to blue – an effect which was probably produced by the mixture of blue with the lake. Tassi, in his ‘Lives of the Bergamasque Painters,’ speaking of the beautiful blues and lakes found on the cinque-cento pictures, says: “Where will you find such colours now?”³ These considerations make it most important to ascertain, if possible, what kind of lakes were used.

³ He published in 1793.

The lakes of Florence and Venice were particularly celebrated. We have seen that in both cities the lacca di cimatura was most common. Cennini⁴ gives the preference to the pigment prepared from gum lac, and it is generally believed that the latter was the lake most frequently employed by the old masters, especially by those of the Venetian school:⁵ the colour of the lake in pictures of this school favours this supposition.

⁴ Trattato, cap. 44.

⁵ Note by Tambroni to Cennini, Trattato, cap. 44.

Pacheco, on the contrary, prefers the Florentine to the lac lake, as more durable, but he says lake of Honduras is not bad. By the last term he probably meant the lake from cochineal or American Brazil wood. Matthioli states¹ that in his time four kinds of lake were made; namely, 1st, that from cremesi or cremisino, which was undoubtedly cochineal; 2nd, that made from grana or kermes; 3rd, that from gum lac; and 4th, that from verzino, which was the worst and least valued of all the others. Lomazzo mentions more than once, in enumerating the colours used, “le lacche tutte,” which is a proof that several kinds of lake were used in his time; and in another place he speaks of “grano,” whence we may infer that the kermes lake was among the number.

¹ Matt. 75.

Florentine lake must have had considerable reputation in Venice, since Leandro Bassano contracted to employ it in his picture of the ‘Combat of the Angels,’ painted for the church of S. Giorgio Maggiore at Venice in 1597.²

² Iscriz. Venet., vol. iv. p. 349.

A Venetian artist told me that the Venetians used kermes (grana) and madder lakes, and that verzino lake was employed by Tintoret only. Another artist, on the contrary, said that the Venetian painters used chiefly verzino lake. A painter and restorer of pictures at Verona believed they used cochineal lake, and, as we have seen, he may be right as far as regards the painters who lived after the middle of the sixteenth century.

From the preceding authorities it will be seen that previous to the middle of the sixteenth century the best lake pigments employed by the Italian painters must have been either the lacca di cimatura or lac lake, or a mixture of one of these with verzino, and that after this period cochineal lake might have been in use. At present there is no evidence which of the two former was generally preferred: judging from the greater number of the recipes for lacca di cimatura, we should perhaps decide that this was the pigment generally adopted; but if an opinion may be formed from the colour of the lake on Italian, and especially on Venetian pictures, we should say that the lac lake was preferred.

Chemical analysis does not diminish the difficulty; the lake-coloured pigments of a miniature of the end of the fourteenth or beginning of the fifteenth century have been analysed by Dr. Antonio Fabroni of Arezzo, who, after stating¹ that the tint where it was mixed with white was of a bright blood colour, draws the following conclusions from his experiments: “The behaviour of this pigment with re-agents proves that this colour is a combination of a terrene base, and probably of very fine white chalk with a red juice, or perhaps with several juices, either of a vegetable or animal nature. It is, in fact, a composition analogous to our modern lakes, or rather to the ‘stils de grain’ of the French. . . . From chemical experiments I should be inclined to believe that the dark red colour of the miniature was produced from verzino, if, besides the chronological difficulty,² the depth and inalterability of the colour, which are incompatible with the nature of Brazil wood, did not oblige me to abandon this conjecture.

¹ Ricerche Chimiche sopra le Miniature di un Manuscritto.

² Sig. Fabroni probably considered that Brazil gave its name to the wood, whereas it is supposed that the name of the wood was transferred to the country.

“Carthamus, gum-lac, and madder appear to me excluded by experiment, and by the appearance of the colour to the eye. I think then, that this lake colour can only be attributed to the kermes (the coccus of the ancients) modified by some indigenous vegetable juice.”

Perhaps it may be safe to conjecture that where lake-coloured draperies are of the colour of blood they have been painted with kermes, and where they incline to the rose-colour, or pink, that lac-lake has been used for them, if painted previous to the middle of the sixteenth century; but if after that period, that either lac, cochineal, or madder may have been employed.

The price of lake does not often appear in old documents, although it is frequently stipulated in contracts that it should be provided by the person who ordered the picture. It is however stated¹ that the lake supplied for the altar-piece, painted in 1521, by Fra Marco Pensaben, at Treviso, was 6 lire the ounce, exactly double the price of the azzurro.

¹ Memorie Trevigiane.

When Guercino was painting the picture called “L’Amore Virtuoso,” 25 oz. of lake, besides 21 oz. of lapis-lazuli to make ultramarine, were given to him.²

² See the Account Book of Guercino, published in the new edition of the Felsina Pittrice.

Volpato remarks³ that lakes should not only be of beautiful colour, but in grinding they should have body, and not become liquid; and De Mayerne observes,⁴ “Lake for glazing should be mixed with but a small quantity of oil, and should be ground as thick as butter, so that it may be cut, otherwise it will have no body, and be good for nothing.” Lake that is left on the palette cannot be preserved, like other colours, by placing it in water, for that would spoil it.⁵ Lakes being slow dryers, the addition of boiled oil or pulverized glass is necessary to promote their desiccation.⁶ Palomino⁷ observes that the colour which in Spain is called ‘Laca de Francia,’ and in France ‘Carmin,’ although very beautiful for illuminations and miniatures, is not durable in oil; for besides losing its beautiful colour, and becoming dark, it dries so badly, that after being to all appearance dry, if the picture be washed even six years after it has been painted, the lake will wash off.” It was remarked to me at Venice that verzino lake was always applied as a glazing colour, and with varnish.

³ P. 745.

⁴ MS., quoted by Mr. Eastlake, ‘Materials,’ &c., p. 451 n.

⁵ Volpato, p. 741.

⁶ Bald., Voc. Dis., Tit. Olio cotto. Paduan MS., p. 666. Pacheco, p. 390. ⁷ Museo Pictorico, vol. ii. p. 53.

In painting lake or rose-coloured draperies, the Venetians generally painted the lights with pure white, and glazed with lake until the colour was sufficiently dark. With lac-lake this was a wise precaution; for Mr. Field remarks,¹ that white-lead destroys this colour. We find that it was sometimes the practice to mix the bone of the cuttle-fish, or white chalk, with lake, in order to give it body. The peculiar kind of lake now made at Venice is an example of this.²

¹ Chromatography, p. 185.

² And see Félibien, de la Peinture, &c., p. 299.

Dragons’-blood, a resin of a dark red colour, which drops in tears from the tree called Pterocarpus draco. It has been used from a very early period in miniature painting, but is not considered a durable colour. Its tint was varied by adding to it an alkali, or soap, when it was called “carmine,” or “ponso.” When a large quantity of soap was added, it was called “cremesino.”

Pavonazzo, Purple, and Mulberry colours.

Morello di ferro. – Probably some ore of iron, burnt until it assumes a morello or murrey colour; or it might have been the hard red hæmatite, ground without being calcined. It was used for painting in oil.³

³ Lomazzo, Trattato, p. 192.

Vitriuolo Romano abbrucciato. – Burnt Roman Vitriol. – An artificial pigment, prepared by calcining sulphate of iron, by which process it acquires a red colour.

Morello di Sale. – The nature of this pigment has not been well ascertained. It is distinguished by Lomazzo⁴ from morello di ferro, and from burnt Roman vitriol. The same author also places it among the colours used in fresco painting. Borghini calls¹ it Pagonazzo di sale, and says it was used for painting in fresco and in tempera. Haydocke, the translator of Lomazzo, took much pains to ascertain the nature of this pigment. He says,² “But as for morello di sale, it must needes be the rust of salte, called flos salis, whereof Mathiolus, l. 5, c. 88, uppon Dioscorides writing saith, that it is of a saffron colour, in these words: ‘There is a reddish colour, like unto rust, digged out of the German salt-mines, much desired of the painters, which, peradventure, is ipse flos salis, the flower itselfe of salt; for it is like it in colour and tast; and is commonly called morello di sale.’ Wherefore I rather think that it is the rust of iron, and the rust of salte, making naturally a bay colour; for which cause I have still translated them the rust of iron and salte; though in some places they agree not in colour as they are named in the mixture. So that I imagine there is some errour crept into the booke, which by mine owne paines I cannot yet finde, nor by my conference with many good painters and chemists.”

⁴ Ibid., p. 191, “Il morello di ferro, e quello di sale, fanno il morello, e oltre di ciò il vetriuolo cotto,” &c.

¹ Riposo, p. 174.

² Translation of Lomazzo’s Treatise on Painting, p. 100.

I have been unable to find the passage quoted by Haydocke in Matthioli’s translation of Dioscorides, lib. 5, cap. 88, or cap. 87, in which he treats of the various kinds of salts. Matthioli says, in speaking of “fiore di sale,” that “it is of a red colour, like rust of salt—that it is very deliquescent, and that by suffering it to repose, the sediment subsides, and the upper portion remains liquid.” This description agrees somewhat with the information I received at Venice, namely, that morello di sale is the sediment which subsides from rock-salt when it is purified.

Phillips³ describes rock-salt as of various colours, namely, white, grey, reddish-brown, brick-red, violet, and green; when coloured it is always more or less impure. He says that red or greyish clay frequently alternates in beds with rock-salt.

³ Mineralogy, p. 193.

It seems probable that morello di sale was the same as the morellen salz of the Germans. From an analysis, made by a friend, the latter pigment is found to consist of peroxide of iron, with a small quantity of silica and alumina. I am informed that there is nothing in these ingredients which militates against the opinion of the Venetians that morello di sale is the sediment formed in the purification of rock-salt. This purification generally takes place in iron vessels, some portions of which may be dissolved and precipitated together with the clay which usually accompanies the salt.

Vasari, it seems, did not approve of this colour in fresco-painting. Speaking of the frescoes of Buffalmacco, he says,¹ “It was the custom of Buffalmacco, in order to paint the flesh with greater facility, to spread a coat of morello di sale over the whole, which in time caused a salt to form, which consumed the white and other colours; whence it is not surprising that these works are spoiled and destroyed, while others which he painted long before are in good preservation. And I, who thought that these pictures had been injured by the damp, have since proved by experience, and by comparing them with other works of this artist, that the injury did not arise from damp, but it was entirely owing to this habit of Buffalmacco that some of them are so ruined, that not even the design is visible; and where the flesh tints were formerly, nothing now remains but the pavonazzo. This method of painting should not be adopted by any one who wishes his pictures to last.”

¹ Vita di Buffalmacco.

Folium, Turnsol. – Theophilus² and S. Audemar³ describe three kinds of folium, namely, red, purple, and blue, which were prepared from a plant used in England to dye wool. According to these authors, the purple folium was procured artificially by the addition of other ingredients to the red folium.

² Theoph. lib. i. cap. xxxv. ³ P. 132.

S. Audemar gives the English name for the plant from which folium was produced; but the word appears to have been so disguised by the French transcriber, Le Begue, that it is quite unintelligible.

Fortunately, however, Mr. Hendrie has ascertained¹ that the name of the plant from which folium was produced, has been preserved in two MSS., one of which is of the fourteenth century, and the other of the fifteenth. In the first of these² the plant which is called “morella” is described as growing in the country of St. Giles, and as producing seeds consisting of three grains or berries, with the juice of which were dyed pieces of cloth, which yield a mulberry colour called folium.

The second description of folium, which differs but little from the first, is from a MS. belonging to the Bibliothèque Royale at Montpellier. The directions for the preparation of the colours resemble those in Theophilus and S. Audemar.

From these MSS. it appears that the colour called folium was produced from a plant called “morella,” the seeds of which were formed in groups of three berries in a cluster, and that the plant grew “in terra Sancti Egidii.” The Venetian MS. in the Sloane Collection (No. 416) describes a plant,³ from the pulpy seeds of which blue and purple colours were obtained; but this plant is called “tornasole,” and not “morella.” The description¹ is accompanied by a drawing of a plant which bears three berries, and it is followed by an account of the process of preparing the colour, which corresponds with those given by Theophilus, S. Audemar, and the Montpellier MS.

¹ Theoph., p. 59. ² Sloane MS., No. 1754.

³ A fare peçolla azurra la quale e molto fina. R. una erba la quale se chiama torna sole che e grande uno braço e la foia sua e fatta chomo lortiga e da il colore a modo de tera v̅de de quela che vende i spiçiali e le semençe soe sono fate al modo che e el mira—solle el so cholore de le dite semençe e verde schuro e la gamba sie bianchaça, e se voi a chognossiere la dita ēba tola i mano e tochate el chollo īcontinente te bruxa e piçara e queste semençe sono quele de le qūle se fa el color arecholgi queste semençe la maitina p. tempo ināiti che lo sole se lieva e voisse arecholgiere a la ussita de Zug.ᵒ, &c.

¹ For this recipe from the Venetian MS. I am indebted to Mr. Eastlake.

Now there are two plants mentioned by medieval writers under the name of “morella,” one of which is the solanum nigrum, the solatro nero, or ortense, the morella, or herba morella of the Italians, the morelle des jardins, morelle au fruit noir of the French, the black nightshade of the English.² Red, green, and blue dyes were prepared from the seeds of this plant, as we find from the MS. of Le Begue, Nos. 94, 338; the Bolognese MS., No. 91; and Paduan MS., Nos. 35 and 100; but on referring to the figure of this plant in Matthioli, we see that the berries grew in bunches of four, and not in three, and that in other respects it differed from the description of the plant in the Venetian MS.

² Nemnich, Polyglotten Lexicon.

The other plant called “morella” is the croton tinctorium, or crozophora tinctoria, the heliotropium minus tricoccum, which is called in French tournesole, but at Montpellier “maurelle.”³ The term tricoccumwill not escape observation as agreeing with the old descriptions, and the name “tornasole” given to the acrid plant described in the Venetian MS. sufficiently identifies it with the croton tinctorium, the corrosive properties of which are well known.

³ Ibid.

And now with regard to the place where it grows. The heliotropium tricoccum grows in marshy places, and is a native of the Levant and south of Europe, Provence and Languedoc, especially of Galarques, where a colour is still prepared by steeping rags in the juice of this plant,¹ and the neighbourhood of Nismes and Montpellier. The Montpellier and Sloane MSS., it will be recollected, state that it grew in “terra Sancti Egidii,” and Egidius is the Latin name for Gilles, or Giles: now about thirteen miles due south of Nismes is St. Gilles, a town of great antiquity, the Rhoda Rhodiorum of Pliny, chiefly remarkable at present for its magnificent abbey (which dates from the twelfth century), and other medieval remains. This then is the “terra Sancti Egidii” of the MSS., and the plant morella is the “maurelle” of Montpellier, the modern turnsol. Montpellier and its neighbourhood have always been celebrated for the dyes prepared there, and this city was at one time the centre of the commerce of Languedoc.² At the present time it carries on extensive dye and chemical works, and manufactories of colours, some of which are nearly peculiar to itself and neighbourhood.

¹ Marcucci, Saggio, &c., p. 132.

² Depping, Histoire du Commerce, &c., vol. i. p. 302.

Having now determined the name and species of the plant from which folium was procured, and the country where it grew, it remains to account for the appellation folium, which, at first sight, appears inapplicable to the juice of a berry. I consider that this is explained by the Montpellier and the Venetian MSS. The directions in the former for preparing the colour are rather indefinite, but the Venetian MS. is more explicit. It directs³ that pieces of cloth or rag are to be dyed with the juice pressed from the pulp surrounding the seeds; and then dried in the shade, and preserved by laying them between the leaves of a book, like leaves of gold, and when required for use, the colour was discharged from the rag by steeping it in water. I imagine the dye derived its name of “folium” from this practice of preserving the pieces of cloth in books.

³ – “e quando serano seche le dite peçe mitele ī uno libro de charta bobaxina e tine lo libro soto lo chaveçale aço che nō pia umiditad e quando ne voi adoverar taiane uno puocho e mitelo amoio la sira ī uno chaparaço con uno puocho de aqᵃ la maitina sera fato e lo cholore foro de la peça.”

Some little difficulty has been thrown on this subject, from the statement of Theophilus and S. Audemar, that red, blue, and purple colours were obtained from the same plant. In the Sloane MS. the colour is said to be mulberry. Pierre Pomet says that turnsole en drapeau consists of nothing but rags dyed red with the juice of the heliotropium tricoccum, or tornesol, the fruit of which makes a very fine blue, but that the least acid turns it red. In the Table of Synonymes it is mentioned among the red colours. Nemnich,¹ De Candolle,² Léméri,³ the author of the Paduan MS., and the translators of ‘Beckmann’s Inventions,’ speak of it as producing a blue dye. Clusius,⁴ De l’Abel,⁵ and Merret,⁶ who follows Libavius, say it dyes cloth a bright green, which changes to blue and purple. Gerarde⁷ mentions a purple colour only. Constant de Massoul⁸ says, a paste is prepared from the fruit of the heliotropium tricoccum, that grows in gardens in France. This paste being steeped in water, takes a beautiful blue tint. It will sometimes appear of a red colour, but by adding a little lime-water it will return to its blue colour.

¹ Polyglotten Lexicon. ² Flore Française.

³ Histoire des Drogues. ⁴ Rariorum Plant. Hist., 1501.

⁵ Plantarum seu Stirpium Hist., 1576, and Adversaria, 1576.

⁶ Notes to Neri, cap. 110.

⁷ The Herball, or Generall Historie of Plantes, 1597.

⁸ Treatise on the Art of Painting, London, 1797, p. 186.

All these authors speak of the colour being preserved by dyeing rags in it. It may be considered then that the colour, when fresh, was green, that it became blue on drying, and afterwards purple and red, according to the ingredients used in the preparation.

The rags thus tinged with the juice of the Croton Tinctorium or Turnsol were called in Italian Pezzette, literally, small pieces, or as we should say, rags; for soft, fine, and worn-out linen cloth was used for this purpose. In Italy the pezzette were of various colours. Cennini speaks¹ of “pezzette di Levante.” Don Alessio states, that they were made from “cimatura di grana,” or verzino; Pomet and Léméri say that the “tournesole en drapeau” of Constantinople was fine linen or crape, dyed with an acid preparation of cochineal. “Pezzette morelle” were made from the juice of the wild elder; “pezzette pavonaze” from the juice of the myrtle. “Pezzette” of different colours are described in the Bolognese MS.²

¹ Cap. x. ² Pp. 443, 427, 439, 443.

I have little doubt that the bezette of the Germans was the pezzette of the Italians, and the bisetus of the middle ages.

The folium of Theophilus and S. Audemar must not be confounded with the folium described by St. Isidore, in the passage quoted by M. de l’Escalopier in his ‘Theophilus,’ p. 293 – “Folium dictum, quod sine ulla radice innatans in Indiæ litoribus colligitur. Quod lino perforatum, siccant Indi, atque reponunt. Fertur autem Paradisi esse herba, gustu nardum referens.”

The Catholicon gives a nearly similar description of folium, and adds, that the precious ointment called “foliatum” was made from it. The passage evidently relates to the Malabathrum of Dioscorides, which Matthioli³ says was called “Folio Indiano,” and which was valued for its perfume, and not for its colour.

³ Matt., p. 47.

Indigo appears also to have been called “folium Indicum,” as may be understood from the following passage from Du Cange, also quoted by M. de l’Escalopier:⁴—“Peto, ut nobis mittas ad decorandos parietes colores diversos, qui ad manum habentur, videlicet auripigmentum, folium Indicum, minium, lazur.”

⁴ Théophile, p. 293, n.

Bisetus, or Biseth Folii.—There is some difficulty in reconciling the few notices I have been able to collect respecting this pigment. It is mentioned in Eraclius,¹ who says “Folium incide de bruno; matiza di biseto folii.” Again, “misces brunum cum albo, fietque pulcra rosa; incide de bruno, matiza di albo vel de biseto folii.” “Viride incide de nigro, et matizabis de biseto.” “Indicum incide de nigro; matiza de azurio, vel de vergaut, aut biseth.” “Misce auripigmentum cum azurio vel indico, aut ocrum cum indico, vel viride, et erit bonum vergaut; inde de bruno, aut di nigro, undabis; auripigmentum aut de biseth matizabis.”

¹ P. 253.

The only information to be collected from these passages is, that it was a colour which served for heightening the others, consequently that it was lighter than they were. In the first case, it was used for the lights of a red, purple, or blue drapery; in the second, of a red drapery; in the third and fifth, of a green drapery; and in the fourth, of a blue drapery.

These passages, therefore, are no guide to the colour; and as Eraclius gives directions for painting changeable draperies in this chapter, it is by no means necessary that the lights should be of the same colour as the shades.

The next notice of bisetus is in the Table of Synonymes,² where it is described as being less red than folium, and is said to be taken from that portion which swims on the surface. Le Begue adds, “I believe that this term is applicable in the same sense to the lighter tint of any colour, when tempered in shells (such lighter tint rising to the surface), after the colour has settled a little.”³

² P. 21.

³ I have adopted Mr. Eastlake’s translation. See ‘Materials,’ &c., p. 425.

Merret, in his notes to Neri’s ‘Arte Vetraria’ (cap. cx.), mentions bezetta as a synonyme of turnsol, “bezetta seu tornasolis;” this, it will be observed, agrees with the description in the Table of Synonymes. In speaking of this colour, Merret quotes a passage from the ‘Wormianum,’ in which Wormius relates that a piece of cloth tinged with a bright and beautiful red colour was given to him by Christopher Herfert (apothecary to Christian V.), who did not know how it was produced; that it appeared to have been coloured with red sandal wood, and was used to give a red colour to food in the same way as the common turnsol; but that it was far superior to it; that it communicated its colour to water, and with some difficulty to wine, but not to spirit of wine. From this it would appear that Merret considered this piece of red cloth might be included under the general term bezzetta; and that the term was not applicable solely to cloth dyed with turnsole.

My opinion is strengthened by a remark of Nemnich, who says,¹ that cloths dyed with the juice of the turnsol were called in the Levant and at Venice “pezzette,” and not “bezzette,” as it is usually written. An eminent German chemist informed me that in the laboratory in Berlin, where he studied chemistry, there were several old boxes marked with the word “bezzette,” which contained coloured rags. It is probable, therefore, that bisetus or biseth is a Latin term for bezzette, which is a corruption of the Italian pezzette; and that these pezzette might be of different colours; hence the opinion expressed by Le Begue in the Table of Synonymes was probably correct. Whether it is practicable to obtain two tints from folium, that is to say, one from the juice itself and another from the scum which arises on it, and whether this lighter tint was of a pale red only, or sometimes purple or blue, can only be determined by experiment.

¹ Polyglotten Lexicon, tit. Croton Tinctorium.

With regard to the use of bisetus on the lights in the manner mentioned by Eraclius, it must be observed, that the colour with which the rags were saturated being transparent, might be made to appear as light as it was necessary, by being much diluted, and that the strength of the colour would depend on the quantity of water with which it was mixed, and the repetition of the colour.

Palomino mentions a colour which he calls “urchilla;”¹ he states that it is of a morello colour, and known only to a few persons; that it is excellent for illuminating and for shading sketches (or subjects in chiaroscuro); he adds, that although he “could describe the mode of preparation from the juice of morello-coloured lilies and alum, it was not his intention so to do, but merely to mention a beautiful transformation which it undergoes, for by throwing into it lemon-juice instead of water, it changes its colour to that of carmine or dragon’s blood; so that, from being one colour only, it becomes two, and both may be used for illuminating, for miniatures, and for sketches.” It is unnecessary to observe that if this colour were really made of the juice of blue lilies, it could not have been the oricello of the Italians. Pacheco says² that in illuminating, blues were shaded with this colour.

¹ Vol. ii. p. 343. ² Tratado, p. 354.

Blue Pigments.

AZZURRO. – By this term the early Italian painters appear to have understood Azzurro della Magna.

Azzurro della Magna, Azzurro Todesco, Azzurro Spagnuolo, Azzurro de Anglia, Azzurro de Lombardia,³ Lazurstein, Citramarinum. – I have stated my opinion (supported by what appeared to me satisfactory evidence) in a former work,⁴ that this German azure was a native blue ore of copper. I have since ascertained that the fact has been settled beyond a doubt by Professor Branchi of Pisa.¹ This gentleman analysed a portion of the blue pigment from one of the pictures formerly in the chapel of S. Jacopo di Pistoia. For this purpose he poured a sufficient quantity of concentrated sulphuric acid on the blue pigment, which he afterwards evaporated to dryness; the residue then being dissolved in distilled water, gave a blue colour with ammonia, and a bluish-green precipitate with carbonate of potash. An iron knife-blade being immersed in the liquor, metallic copper was deposited on it. The Professor also obtained the same results from the analyses of the blue pigments of other ancient pictures, especially that from the ground of the very ancient Madonna in the Lunette of the lateral door of the Duomo of Pisa, for which, as appears from the account-roll preserved in the archives, azzurro d’Alemagna was provided. Dr. A. Fabroni, of Arezzo, also analysed a portion of the blue colour of a MS. of the beginning of the fifteenth century. After describing² the effects of different chemical re-agents on this pigment, he observes, “At first sight this colour resembles ultramarine, or at least the finest smaltino. Nevertheless it is clearly shown by analysis to be an oxide of copper, and I have satisfied myself by ocular examination, as well as by the comparative effects of re-agents, that it is identical with our biadetto (cendre bleue of the French), although it is much deeper in colour. It is to be observed that I have seen the same colour on some ancient fresco paintings which existed in the suppressed monastery of S.S. Flora and Lucilla in our city, which for some centuries have been exposed to the injuries of the air, and yet the colour is very bright.” Sig. Fabroni conjectured that the colour was “mountain blue heightened by some acid or saline preparation.” But it appears quite possible for the colour to have been produced by the indurated blue carbonate of copper, which is of as deep and fine a colour as ultramarine when first prepared and used, although it differs from the latter in being more easily affected by re-agents, and in fact by being generally less permanent. Professor Petrini has written several articles in the ‘Antologia’¹ respecting the pigment azzurro della magna. In one of these, dated August, 1821, after mentioning the experiments of Branchi on the old pictures in S. Jacopo di Pistoia, he says, “the same experiments have been tried with similar success on a great number of pictures of the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, whence it appears that the painters of that period knew no other mineral azures than ultramarine and azzurro della magna.”

³ Cennini states (cap. lx.) that Azzurro della Magna was found near Siena. It is also stated to be produced at Striscia, in the district of Volterra. See Ricett. Fiorent. ⁴ Art of Fresco Painting, p. xxxiv.—li.

¹ Lettera di Branchi, &c., pp. 7, 8, 9.

² See Ricerche Chimiche sopra le Miniature di un Manuscritto, published in the Acts of the Soc. of Arts, &c., of Arezzo, 1843, vol. i. p. 3.

¹ Published at Florence.

De Boot² distinguishes two kinds of azure, that which was fixed in the fire, and that which was not fixed. The former was the real ultramarine, which was always brought from the East; the latter was found in Germany, and was commonly called *lazurstein*, and this, he observes, “occupies a mean place between the Armenian stone, which is friable, and the lapis lazuli, which it resembles in hardness. The colour prepared from the lazurstein is called *asurblau*, but many painters do not distinguish between this mineral and the Armenian stone, which they confound together, because the colours extracted from both are alike. Nevertheless, the stones differ in hardness, and the colour prepared from that which is not fixed in the fire is generally more beautiful than that prepared from the Armenian stone. I possess colours prepared by my own hand, which are so fine that they bear comparison with ultramarine.”

² Le parfaict Joaillier, p. 351.

The above description, as well as those of Cennini³ and the Bolognese MS.,¹ corresponds with the characteristics of the indurated native blue carbonate of copper. The difficulty of distinguishing between these two minerals has always been felt, and there appears to be no test but that of fire, which was known at a very early period.²

³ Trattato, cap. lx.

¹ P. 343. Both kinds of carbonate of copper appear to be described in this chapter.

² See pp. 247, 341, 385.

The mode of preparing this mineral as a pigment is described by Cennini, and in the Bolognese MS.³ Having shown that the blue pigment in several old paintings, both mural and on miniatures, has been ascertained to be copper, I shall now give a few extracts from documents, proving that it was used on pictures also. The stipulation in the contract to use azzurro della magna must be considered evidence of the esteem in which it was held.

³ P. 365.

“1453, 10 August . . . . . Padua.
“Agreement made between the monastery of Sta. Giustina and me, Andrea Mantegna, painter, relative to the painting of an altar-piece to be placed over the altar of S. Luca in the church of Sta. Giustina, by which I, Andrea Mantegna, agree to paint all the figures at my own expense, including the colours, for the price of 50 ducats in Venetian gold, and to inlay with azzurro Todesco all the carvings and ornaments of the said altar-piece,” &c.⁴

⁴ “1453, adi 10 Agosto . . . . . Padova.

“Pati fati con el Monastero di Sta. Giustina e mi Andrea Mantegna pentor cerca el penger de una so pala da altare da esser mesa a l’altar de San Luca in la dita Gesia di Sta. Giustina soe de depenger tutte le figure a mie spese e colori per prexio de ducati cinquanta doro veniciani con questo che debo campizar dazuro todesco tuti li intagi e adornamenti de la dita pala,” &c. Copied from the original contract in the possession of the Conte Francesco de’ Lazara, at Padua. The contract has been published by Moschini in his work entitled ‘Dell’ Origine e delle Vicende della Pittura in Padova,’ p. 34 n.

This picture, observes Moschini in 1826, is now fresh and intact at Milan. On my second visit to Milan, Conte Pompeo Litta obligingly procured me an order, which enabled me to obtain a private view of this picture (which, with many others, had been removed from the gallery of Brera, for the purpose of re-laying the floors). The picture is divided into twelve compartments, separated by columns. In the centre is an evangelist, and in the other compartments are saints; those in the upper row are half-figures, while those in the lower are whole lengths. The figures are painted on gold grounds, and there are several dark-blue draperies, but the blue has turned black. All the colours appear to have darkened, except the lakes, which are as good as ever. The carvings and ornaments inlaid with blue are no longer with the picture. Andrea Mantegna was in his 22nd year when he painted this altar-piece.

By a contract, dated 22nd February, 1474, Giacomo Filipo, a painter of Ferrara, agreed with Fra Ludovico da Forlì, Prior of the old Church of S. Salvatore at Bologna, to paint certain pictures, “de boni coluri a modo stia bene,” on a ground of “azuro todesco,” of the price of 10 bolognini the ounce.¹

¹ Gualandi, Memorie di Belle Arti, Ser. iv. p. 91.

In the documents respecting the celebrated altar-piece by Fra Marco Pensaben at Treviso, published in the ‘Menorie Trevigiane,’ a blue colour, which from its price could not have been ultramarine, is mentioned in the following terms: – “1521, 13: Ott. Dati per oncie 10 e mezza d’azzurro, a lire tre l’onza.”

Azzurro di Terra, Azzurro di Spagna, Biadetto, Cenere Azzurre, Ceneretta, la Cendrée, Cendres bleues, Cenizas azules, Bleu de Montagne, Bice, Terra biaua, Sanders blue, Ongaro, Bleu minerale, Turchino, Bergblau. – A blue pigment, prepared from carbonate of copper, has been known to artists under the above names from a very early period. It appears to have been of a paler colour than the pigment called azzurro della magna,² and in fact not to have exceeded in depth of colour the blue of the sky. It is probable that the azzurro di terra was produced from the earthy blue carbonate of copper; but when the latter was of a bluish-green colour it was employed for preparing the pigment called verde azzurro.

² See Caneparius, p. 360.

It will be seen from the following MSS., that artificial blue pigments prepared from copper were common at an early period. As these azures were easily and cheaply made, and as they were, when freshly prepared, but little inferior in colour to the natural pigments, they found a ready sale, and were not easily distinguishable from the native pigments; indeed it appears from more than one writer of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, that it was not generally known whether “cenere azzurre” were natural or artificial productions. The author of the ‘Trattato di Miniatura’ remarks (p. 52), “It is not known exactly what the ‘cenere azzurre’ of England really are, or how they are made. They are brought from Dantzic by the English and Dutch, who export them to France and other places, whence they are called ‘cenere d’Inghilterra.’” Pierre Pomet says¹ that “cendre bleue” is a composition, or pulverized stone, brought from England or Rouen, whence it is imported into France by the Swedes, Hamburghers, and Danes. Notwithstanding the diligent inquiries I have made, I have found it impossible to ascertain the nature of the “cendre bleue:” some tell me it is a composition made at Rouen; but as those who make it keep it a secret, I could not learn how it is made. The author of the ‘Traité de la Peinture au Pastel’ appears to have been better informed; he says, “à l’égard de la cendre bleue, c’est une terre chargée d’une certaine quantité de chaux minérale de cuivre; le ton de ce minéral est d’un bleu naissant très agréable.”

¹ Hist. Générale des Drogues, vol. ii. p. 385.

It is almost unnecessary to observe that sanders blue is a corruption of “cendre bleue.”

A blue pigment prepared from the native ore of copper was in use in Italy at the time of Lomazzo under the name of “Ongaro.”¹ This is the pigment which, it is stated on the authority of Pacheco, Michael Coxie obtained from Titian for the purpose of painting the mantle of the Virgin in the copy he was making of the celebrated altar-piece of the Van Eycks at Ghent.² Ongaro is mentioned in the Paduan MS.

¹ See Trattato, p. 191. ² See Pacheco, p. 373.

Biadetto. – This term, which occurs so frequently in technical works on painting, has been applied both to the native and to the artificial pigment prepared from copper. There is no doubt that at an early period of art the natural pigment (which was of a much finer colour than the factitious) was much used.³ Mr. Eastlake⁴ has discovered the true derivation of the term “biadetto” in the ‘Bladetus de Inde’ of the Venetian MS., which is identified by De Mayerne with “la cendrée,” and beis or bice. “La cendrée” is described to be “made of the blue stone which comes from India, and which is found in silver mines.”

³ Lettera di Branchi.

⁴ Materials, &c., p. 121.

The “azzurro di biadetti” of Borghini and Baldinucci was the artificial pigment. The native mineral pigment is mentioned under the term azzurro di vena naturale, and both these are distinguished from azzurro della magna. The biadetto now sold in Italy is the artificial pigment which is imported from England; but I could not ascertain the commercial name. The modern biadetto is described in the ‘Secreti’ of Fra Fortunato to be composed of verdigris, sal-ammoniac, and tartar.

The name *turchino* is stated to have been applied to this class of pigments in consequence of their being imported at one time into Italy in large quantities by the Turks;⁵ others trace the name to the resemblance of the colour of the pigment to the blue stone called turquoise, a mineral which also owes its colour to copper.

⁵ See Ciampi, Notizie, &c., p. 57.

A modern blue pigment, known under the name of copper, mountain, English, Hambro’, lime, kassler, mineral, and Neuwieder blue, is prepared from carbonate of copper, with hydrated oxide of copper and lime. “It is obtained by a particular process (which at present is kept in part secret), by decomposing subchloride of copper by a solution of caustic potash, and afterwards mixing the mass with caustic lime, and exposing the mixture for some time to the air. When the greenish-blue colour has become a pure blue, the mass is dried and ground into a rather coarse, crumbling, or dust-like powder. The darker sorts contain only a small percentage of quick lime; but the lighter sorts, on the contrary, from 20 to 70 per cent. Mountain blue is used as a lime colour, but chiefly for colouring rooms, on account of its unchangeability on lime grounds; sometimes as enamel colour instead of oxide of copper.”¹

¹ Pharmaceutical Journal, vol. vi. p. 82.

Although Boschini affirms that biadetto was one of those colours which the Venetians “abhorred like the plague,” there is evidence to show that blue pigments from copper were used by Venetian painters. The fact of Titian having in his possession some of the colour called “ongaro” has been already mentioned. Paolo Veronese is stated by Signor Pietro Edwards to have employed “a certain mineral azure which is no longer in use;” and Paolo’s well-known practice of mixing his blues with size may be considered a confirmation of this assertion, since the copper blues if used with oil were certain to change. A Venetian artist, whose family have always been painters, and who doubtless possesses much traditionary knowledge, also stated that the Venetians used a “terra azzurra”² which is now lost; but he added, that on analysis biadetto had been found on the pictures of Tintoretto only. The ‘Tariffa’ of Zuane Mariana proves that a terra biaua was in 1567 imported into Venice in such quantities as to be sold by the peso grosso; and when we consider the immense quantity of blue found on the paintings of the Venetian school, we are obliged to conclude either that ultramarine was more plentiful than it is at present, or that some other blue pigment has been used. To the above instances must be added the opinion current in Venice that biadetto is the pigment which best matches the blue found in Venetian pictures.

² Caneparius also mentions (p. 360, 362) a “terra cerulea.”

The use of blue pigments from copper appears to have prevailed in other schools of the North of Italy. I was informed at Milan that the blue in the drapery of the Virgin in the St. Jerome of Correggio, at Parma, was painted with biadetto. It appears that either biadetto or azzurro della magna was used by Lionardo da Vinci, since there are the following entries in his MS. book of drawings in the Amrogiana Library at Milan: “di spesa tra azurro, oro, biaca, giesso, indacho, et cholla; lire 3 . . . . fra smalto, azurro, e altri colori, lire 1 ½, fra azurro e oro, lire 3 ¹/₃, un’ oncia d’azuro, soldi 10.” Here we have the exact price of the “azuro,” which could not have been ultramarine, and which appears to have been too cheap for azzurro della magna.¹

¹ The price of this pigment at Florence, in 1459, was 3 great florins the oz.; see a letter from Benozzo Gozzoli in the Carteggio Inedito, vol. i. p. 193. The author of the Bol. MS. states that azzurro della magna was sold from 10 to 30 bolognini the oz.

With regard to the manner in which these pigments were employed – in the first place it is clear that they cannot be used with oil without turning green.² It is true that Borghini, Baldinucci, and Lomazzo state that they may be used with oil; but Bisagno remarks “la ceneretta is but little adapted for painting skies, because it becomes green in time:” and the author of the ‘Traité de la Peinture au Pastel’ observes “that cendres bleues might be employed in tempera painting and in unimportant works, that cupreous earths might be used for peinturage (by which he probably meant common decorative effects), but never for painting, even in fresco.

² See Palomino, vol. ii. p. 52.

Paolo Veronese is stated to have generally painted the blues in his pictures with size; Signor Pietro Edwards mentions¹ that in the picture by Paolo in the ceiling of the Collegio in the Ducal Palace at Venice, the blue sky was painted in tempera, and the clouds with oil.

¹ In a document addressed to Sig. Savio Cassier, dated the 25th of Aug., 1780, and now preserved in the Academy at Venice, where I saw it.

As the grounds employed by Paolo consisted generally of a thin coating of glue and gesso only, no preparation was necessary before applying the blue of the sky with size. But when the blue was required to be laid upon oil colours, it was necessary to apply a thin coat of varnish, or to rub the surface with juice of garlic.² The colour was afterwards varnished. Fra Fortunato of Rovigo states, that to prepare biadetto for miniature painting, so that it should spread well, it should be ground with burnt roche alum, or with a little tartar or sandarac. He adds, biadetto should be ground very fine, and used with varnish made of spirit of turpentine and clear mastic; it will then spread well, glaze brilliantly, and be of a beautiful colour. Blue was sometimes applied in powder. De Boot mentions³ that “on account of the excessive price of ultramarine, painters were accustomed to dead colour the parts of their pictures intended to be blue with Armenian stone, or a blue glass called smalt, to which white was added for the lights. When this preparation was quite dry, ultramarine, mixed with nut oil and spirit of turpentine, or varnish, was glazed over it. By this means the colours spread beneath, as if under a glass, became brilliant and splendid, borrowing through this veil from the ultramarine, not only beauty but durability; so that in two hundred years they lost but little of their brightness and beauty.” Volpato directs¹ that azzurro di Spagna should be tempered as firmly as possible with nut oil, and that it should be made to flow with spirit of turpentine.

² See Mr. Eastlake’s ‘Materials,’ &c., p. 455.

³ Le parfaict Joaillier, &c., p. 372.

¹ P. 747.

Bisagno remarks that ceneretta must not be mixed with smaltino, because these colours are inimical to each other,² and Constant de Massoul³ makes the same remark with regard to cendre bleue and orpiment.

² Pacheco, however, recommends that azul de Santo Domingo should be shaded with good smalti. Tratado, p. 391.

³ Art of Painting, p. 176.

There is one peculiarity attending the blue pigments in Italian pictures, which was first pointed out to me by a Milanese artist, and this is that the blues invariably are raised above the surface of the other colours, and that in some cases (and he particularly instanced Correggio’s S. Jerome at Parma) they stand up as high as a five franc piece above the canvass. I have myself seen them on some pictures raised to the height of an English shilling. This artist ascribed the effect to the difficulty of using the blue, and to the necessity of repeating the colour several times.

Pacheco’s method of using blue pigments has been described briefly by Mr. Eastlake.⁴

⁴ Materials, &c., p. 431; and see Pacheco, p. 361.

Smalto and Smaltini, Email, Azur à poudrer. – There were two kinds of pigment of this name, one of which was a preparation of zaffre, the other was a glass composed of sand, nitre, and copper filings. The latter is the Vestorian azure described by Vitruvius, which was called also azzurro di Pozzuoli. It was chiefly used in fresco painting.⁵ The smalto made at Venice in the time of Caneparius seems to have been of the latter kind, since this author describes the first under the term zaphara.

⁵ See translations of Vitruvius by Orsini, published in 1822; and by Galliani, published at Naples in 1758.

It is not always easy to decide which pigment is intended when these terms are employed, for there is evidence that they were both in use at the same time in Italy. Lomazzo mentions “gli smalti, come quello di Fiandra che è il migliore de gl’ altri tutti;” from the last words it might almost be inferred that other vitrified pigments of this kind were known, besides the two above-mentioned. There is little doubt that the “smalto di Fiandra” was *zaffre*, and that it was very similar to the pigment we now call “smalt.” The smaltino of the ‘Abecedario’ was also a preparation of zaffre.

One kind of azzurro di smalto only is mentioned by Borghini;¹ this he states was composed of glass, and was used in fresco, in tempera, and in oil.

¹ Riposo, p. 173.

Lionardo da Vinci mentions “smalto” among the colours provided for the decoration of the apartments in the castle in which Lodovico il Moro resided;² but at the period when these paintings were executed (1492), it is scarcely probable that zaffre was known in Italy. In the absence, therefore, of evidence to the contrary, we must believe that the smalto mentioned by him was of the same nature as the smaltino used by his contemporary Pietro Perugino for the mantle of the Virgin in his picture at Montone. Baldassare Orsini states that the smaltino in this picture was painted in distemper on a ground of black; and to modify the brightness of this blue Pietro had stippled the whole drapery with lake. With regard to the composition of the smaltino, Orsini states that he had analysed this colour, and had found that it was a vitrified pigment like that described by Vitruvius in powder, and that it was tempered with flour paste.³

² Amoretti, Memorie Storiche di L. da Vinci, p. 38.

³ Elogio e Memorie di Pietro Perugino, p. 208, and n.

Smaltino appears also to have been occasionally employed in oil-paintings, as we learn from Borghini, and from Bisagno; the latter says it should not be mixed with “ceneretta,” and that for painting skies it should be mixed with white lead, and tempered with nut oil. This pigment is called “cerulée” in the Brussels MS.¹ Lebrun states² that very beautiful blue draperies are made with “azur à poudrer” (smalt):³ they must be first painted with black and white, the lights being bright (that is to say, very white), and the shades being very dark, and then sprinkled with “azur à poudrer.” Mr. Eastlake gives⁴ several instances of blue being painted in this manner. Christophe Ballard recommends⁵ that email (smalt) should be mixed with oil of turpentine, in order that it may dry and not flow, email, he states, “being very difficult to use; for if it be made too liquid it will flow; and if too thick and firm you will not be able to use it; but by mixing it with spirit of turpentine it may be easily used; for the oil of turpentine evaporates in the air.” This author gives the following directions for preventing the colour from flowing (qu’elle ne coule): – “When you have painted your drapery, you will place your picture on the ground, or upon a table; then you will take some crumpled paper, such as the grey paper used by merchants, tear it into small pieces, and let it fall upon your work. The paper will absorb all the oil; and when the blue is nearly dry, and, as we say, ‘embu,’ even although it should not be quite dry, the paper will prevent the colour from flowing. To remove the paper, you must strike the picture upon a corner, and all the paper will fall off: and note, that you must not suffer it to dry, or you will not be able to remove the paper; neither must the pieces of paper be too large, or they will mark the drapery.”⁶

¹ P. 804. ² P. 821.

³ Pierre Pomet, Hist. des Drogues, vol. i. p. 192, 193.

⁴ Materials, &c., p. 431, 455. ⁵ Traité de Mignature, p. 216, 217.

⁶ For other methods of using smalt, see also Mr. Eastlake’s ‘Materials,’ &c., p. 427—432.

In 1676, “the finest ground smalt that ever came into England” was valued at 8s. a pound.¹

¹ Walpole’s Anecdotes, vol. iii. p. 137.

The early history of cobalt and zaffre is involved in so much obscurity, and the evidence respecting it appears so conflicting, that it is considered useless to enter into the subject in the present work.² The same remark applies to the zaffirro of the middle ages, which, although it decidedly signifies in some cases ultramarine, or lapis lazuli, is yet used so vaguely that it cannot be understood to be limited to this substance only. The difficulty of coming to any decision on this subject may be estimated by the consideration that the term zafirro, saffiro, or saphiro, was used to denote a precious stone of a blue colour as well as a blue mineral, which from its description must be lapis lazuli; that zaffera, saphra, or zaffre was a blue pigment prepared from cobalt, which is now known by the name of smalt, and that safar is the Moorish name for copper.³ So little variation is there between the terms used to designate the three minerals from which the principal blue pigments are made.

² It may be observed here that the Egyptians were acquainted with cobalt, but they used it only for colouring glass. The small blue figurines are coloured with copper, and neither M. Laurent, M. Malaguti, nor M. Salvetat, have been able to detect any cobalt in them. See De Brongniart, Traité des Arts Céramiques, p. 558, 563. The experiments of Prof. John, of Berlin, prove that the blues in the Egyptian paintings were oxides of copper, with a small intermixture of iron, and that none of them contain cobalt. See ‘The Epochs of Painting characterised: a Sketch of the History of Painting, Ancient and Modern,’ by Mr. Wornum.

³ See Mr. Ford’s Hand-book for Spain, p. 128. ⁴ P. 391.

Various kinds of artificial mineral azures were employed in Italy; many of these are described in the Bolognese MS. (cap. ii.). The pigment described at p. 388 is represented to be better than azzurro della magna, and in appearance and colour to be equal to ultramarine. Another of these azures is stated to be worth four ducats the pound;⁴ and a third, five gold ducats the pound.¹ Borghini describes² several of these artificial azures. But of all the pigments of this class there is none which is mentioned so frequently by all writers on colours as the azure said to be prepared from silver.³ Yet, in spite of the most diligent inquiry, I have been unable to ascertain that any salt of silver is capable of producing a blue colour. It is probable that the composition of such a pigment may have been suggested by the known fact, that the old bladetus de Inde before mentioned was found in silver mines; and it is very probable that the medieval artists attributed to silver the blue colour which was actually owing to the copper with which the silver was mixed. Whenever a blue colour was really produced from the solution of silver plates in acetic acid, it may be concluded that the colour was produced by the solution of the copper with which the silver was alloyed; and there appears to be no evidence to support the assertion found in some medieval MSS., that a blue colour could be produced from pure silver. The blue pigment composed of sulphur, mercury, and sal ammoniac, has been called Venetian azure.⁴

¹ P. 403. ² Riposo, p. 173.

³ Le Begue, p. 47, 49. Bol. MS., p. 395, 399. Theoph., E. ed., p. 422.

⁴ See recipes at the end of the Abecedario Pittorico.

Bleu Minerale. – There is some doubt as to the nature of the pigment known in Italy by this name. Some persons consider it the same as turchino; and it seems a pigment prepared from copper and lime is still sold under this name. Other persons state that it was a preparation of cobalt, and was brought from Germany. In the Pharmaceutical Journal⁵ it is stated to be a cyanide of iron, produced by mixing a solution of sulphate of iron with prussiate of potash, and carefully heating the light precipitate, which is formed with nitric acid, till it assumes a deep blue colour. The white substances used for the finer sorts are alumina, gypsum, and heavy spar; for the more common sorts, starch or clay. The same author also mentions that Prussian blue mixed with the oxide of zinc, was formerly sold under the name of bleu minerale.¹

⁵ Vol. vi. p. 82.

¹ See Traité de la Peinture au Pastel, where this colour is said not to have been affected by the strongest vapours of liver of sulphur in effervescence with the mineral acids.

Ultramarine, Azur d’Acre. – The exact period when this fine pigment was introduced is not yet determined. There is no doubt, however, that the real lapis lazuli from Tartary was known in the thirteenth century, since it is mentioned in the work of Yousouf Jeifaschy, who appears to have been a jeweller of Cairo.² The term ultramarine must have been common in Italy at the beginning of the fourteenth century, since it occurs in the Italian MS. of Johannes de Modena,³ and in the recipe given by Michelino de Vesuccio to Alcherius, both of which were copied in 1410. In some MSS. it is called “azurrum transmarinum,” in contradistinction to azzurro della magna, which was called azzurrum citramarinum.⁴ Ultramarine has always been occasion-ally used by the Italian painters, and so much was it esteemed that it was frequently the subject of a particular stipulation in contracts. It was generally supplied by the person who ordered the picture, but in some cases the artist himself agreed to employ it. Thus in 1501, Aloese Vivarino di Murano agreed to use ultramarine in his picture painted for the guardians of the Scuola della Carità.⁵ It was employed by Paolo Veronese in the “Nozze di Cana;”⁶ by Leandro Bassano, in his picture of the Battle of the good Angels with Lucifer, and in that of Sta. Lucia, painted for the church of S. Giorgio Maggiore at Venice;⁷ by Pietro

² Depping, Hist. du Commerce, vol. i. p. 147. ³ P. 96, 102.

⁴ P. 348 and n.

⁵ For this notice, extracted from the Venetian archives, I am indebted to the Abbate Cadorin, the biographer of Titian.

⁶ Iscriz. Venet., vol. iv. p. 253. ⁷ Ibid., p. 349, 352.

Perugino, for his picture in the Duomo of Orvieto;¹ by Palma Giovane, for the pictures he painted in S. Nicolò at Treviso, in 1618;² by Gio. Batista Ponchino, for the Pala d’Altare in the choir of the Archipresbiterale at Treviso,³ in 1551; by Denys Calvart, in 1601, and by Francesco Albano, in 1639,⁴ for their pictures in the church of the Servites at Bologna; by Innocenza da Imola, in his pictures in S. Michele in Bosco;⁵ by Felice Damiani, in 1593;⁶ and by Ludovico Carracci, in 1587,⁷ in the picture of the Conversion of S. Paul. It appears, from various entries in the account book kept by Guercino⁸ of the receipts for his pictures, that he generally employed ultramarine which was furnished by his employer. Sometimes the pigment, ready prepared, was given to him, and sometimes the lapis lazuli, from which it appears he was to prepare the colour himself. Thus, for the picture called “L’Amore Virtuoso,” he received twenty-one ounces of lapis lazuli to make ultramarine.

¹ Orsini, Elogio di Pietro Perugino, p. 194 and n.

² Memorie Trevigiane, vol. ii. p. 59.

³ Ibid., p. 76.        

⁴ Gualandi, Memorie, ser. i. p. 4, 19. ⁵ Ibid., p. 61.

⁶ Ibid., ser. ii. p. 4. ⁷ Ibid., ser. ii. p. 132.

⁸ The original account book is in the Ercolani Collection at Bologna. It has been published in the new edition of the Felsina Pittrice, by Jacopo Alesandro Calvi, at Bologna.

Contrary to the assertion of some modern artists, Pungaleone states⁹ that Correggio always made use of ultramarine, although it appears that he employed “azzurro” (probably azzurro della magna), which cost but three lire the ounce, for the decoration of the “casa del anchona de lo altare grando” at Correggio.¹⁰

⁹ Life of Correggio, vol. i. p. 248. ¹⁰ Ibid., vol. ii. p. 68, 69.

Ultramarine is stated to have been found on Venetian pictures; and although the artists of this school used also the blue pigments from copper, there seems little doubt that the greater part of the ultramarine imported into Italy was introduced by way of Venice, which was the great emporium of Oriental commerce.

The price of ultramarine at different periods has been preserved by several writers. In 1437 it was sold at Florence for eight ducats the ounce.¹ In 1548 the price at Venice was sixty scudi the ounce.² In 1788 the price at Paris was one hundred francs, or even as much as fifty crowns the ounce.³ The value of ultramarine is not stated in the Bolognese MS., but the price of a pound of lapis lazuli varied, according to the goodness of the specimen, from two to five ducats. De Boot mentions⁴ that lapis lazuli was usually sold for eight or ten thalers the pound, and if the stone was good it would produce at least ten ounces of azure. One of the best specimens would yield five and a half ounces of the best colour, worth twenty thalers the ounce. The second quality was worth five or six thalers, the third only one thaler, or one and a half. The price paid by Lely for one ounce of ultramarine was 2 l. 10 s., but for the best kind he paid as much as 4 l. 10 s. the ounce.⁵

¹ Cennini, Trattato, cap. 62. ² Paolo Pino, Dialogo, p. 18.

³ Traité de la Peinture au Pastel. ⁴ Le parfaict Joaillier, p. 371.

⁵ Walpole’s Anecdotes, vol. iii. pp. 130, 132.

Pacheco states⁶ that ultramarine was not used by the Spanish painters in his time, but it was introduced at a subsequent period, since he himself mentions the colour;⁷ and Palomino gives directions⁸ for using it. The latter remarks that it was never used in the first painting, because, as it had but little body, it did not cover well; and also because, as it was very dear, it would have been employed uselessly; it was therefore either glazed or worked upon some of the other blues. When employed in glazing it was only necessary to mix it with nut-oil, and to pass it over the drapery with a soft brush, moistened with nut-oil and a few drops of spirit of turpentine, so as to leave it smooth and even.

⁶ Tratado, p. 391.

⁷ Ibid., p. 392. ⁸ Museo Pictorico, vol. ii. p. 68.

If the drapery was to be painted with ultramarine, the light and dark tints were to be mixed with white lead and nut-oil, and the shadows heightened with indigo, and if the drapery were previously glazed with ultramarine it would be more easy to execute. As a dryer, Palomino recommends pulverized smalt; but, he says, it must be used cautiously or it will spoil the colour of the ultramarine.¹

¹ Museo Pictorico, vol. ii. p. 57.

De Piles also remarks,² that ultramarine should not be employed for the first painting, but that the lights and shades should be painted in very distinctly, the high lights consisting of pure white, with common colours; or that the first shade tints, and even the half tints, may be painted with charcoal of the willow, which inclines to blue, or with bone black, and then finished with ultramarine; but he adds, that this last method was not so good as the former, neither were the tints so fresh.

² Elémens, pp. 108, 118.

Ultramarine was employed by Simone Cantarini with terra verde in the shadows of flesh, and probably by Guido and some of his pupils,³ and by Baroccio;⁴ and Padre Francesco Lana recommends⁵ that it should be mixed with all the flesh tints.

³ Malvasia, Fels. Pitt., vol. ii. pp. 80, 448.

⁴ Bellori, Vite, &c., p. 118. ⁵ P. 746.

Blue pigments prepared from vegetables are not numerous; the principal are those procured from indigo and woad. Blue colours were also procured from the flowers of the cornflower,⁶ from turnsol or folium, and other plants. The use of these pigments was limited to miniature painting. Guato, or more correctly guado, is the Italian name for the isatis tinctoria, called also glastum sativum—a plant which grows spontaneously in France, Germany, England, and other parts of Europe. It was called glastum by the Romans, and is now known in France by the names of Pastel, Vouede, and Gaude.

⁶ Constant de Massoul, p. 186.

There is sufficient evidence to show that indigo was known as a pigment in the time of the Romans, and that it was used as such during the middle ages in Italy, where it was sold under the name of indigo bagadel, indigo baccadeo or bandas, indacca detto buccaddeo, indaco del golfo.¹ But there is no doubt that the pigment called “indigo,” so frequently mentioned by writers on colours in the thirteenth, fourteenth, and fifteenth centuries, was generally prepared from woad, and not from the real indigo. This will appear from various recipes in the Bolognese MS.,² in the whole of which woad is the principal ingredient.

¹ Depping, vol. i. p. 141. See Cennini, Trattato, cap. 61. Le Begue, pp. 86, 273.

² Pp. 412—416. See also Secreti di D. Alessio, parte ii. p. 34; Nuovo Plicto d’ogni sorte di Tinture; and Paduan MS., p. 676.

It will be observed that the pigment is generally prepared from the blue or purple coloured scum which floats on the dyers’ vats, and which is the produce of fermentation. This agrees with the account of Dioscorides, who says there were two kinds of indigo, the first of which was brought from India, but the second, which was made during the process of dyeing, was a purple scum which floated on the surface of the vats. In commenting on this passage, Matthioli observes,³ “the indigo generally used by the painters was that made in dyehouses, which was procured from woad with which wool is dyed.” This passage alone is sufficient to prove that the term “indigo” was applied to woad. Beckmann says,⁴ that under the name indigo must be understood every kind of blue pigment separated from plants by fermentation, and converted into a friable substance by desiccation; for those who should maintain that the real indigo must be made from those plants named in the botanical system Indigofera tinctoria, would confine the subject within too narrow limits; as the substance which our merchants and dyers consider as real indigo is prepared in different countries from so great a number of plants, that they are not even varieties of the same species.” Although indigo was not considered a durable colour, it appears to have been occasionally used in oil.

³ Trans. of Dioscorides, p. 1414. ⁴ Inventions, tit. Indigo.

The tints were made with white lead. Palomino says,¹ “that it is a fine colour for draperies, and works pleasantly, but that it is necessary to observe the following conditions: 1st, That the lights should not be too light, because the colour fades—therefore the tints should be sufficiently deep; the 2nd and most important, that the tints should not be too oily, but thick, and not tormented with the brush; and 3rdly, that the colour should be well purified.” Different modes of purifying indigo are described by Palomino,² and in the recipes at the end of the Abecedario Pittorico, and also in the Paduan MS.³ When carefully employed, Félibien states⁴ that it is durable if properly used, but that too much oil must not be mixed with it, and allowance must be made for its tendency to fade.

¹ Vol. ii. p. 67. ² Museo Pictorico, vol. ii. p. 67.

³ P. 676. ⁴ Des Principes, &c., p. 299.

Green Pigments.

Mineral green pigments, both natural and artificial, are produced from copper. The native green ores of this metal have always been used in painting under the names of mountain green, Hungarian green, chrysocolla, malachite, cenere verde, verde de miniera, verde di Spagna, verdetto, and green bice. To these colours must be added terra verde, which is said by some persons to owe its colour to copper;⁵ others consider that it is a bluish or grey coaly clay, combined with yellow oxide of iron or yellow ochre.¹ It was sometimes called Prasino and Theodote. Pierre Pomet² states that mountain green was a greenish powder in small grains like sand, and that it was distinguished by this sandy appearance from the artificial, which consisted of pulverized verdigris mixed with a little white lead. It was also sometimes adulterated with cendre verte, of which there were many varieties.³ Mountain green appears to have been but little used in oil painting.

⁵ Marcucci, Saggio, &c., p. 71. Pierre Pomet, Hist. des Drogues, vol. ii. p. 385.

¹ Field, Chromatography, p. 233; and see Mérimée, p. 191.

² Hist. des Drogues, vol. ii. p. 286. ³ Ibid., p. 385.

Native carbonate of copper, although sometimes a pure blue and sometimes pure green, was frequently of a mixed colour, when it was called verde azzurro.

Prasino or Prasminum. – Isidorus gives this name to green earth⁴ (terra verte). But in some cases the name has been applied to a white earth saturated with a vegetable juice of a green colour, as in the Bolognese MS., No. 88.

⁴ See p. 244, n. 4; and Theophilus, E. ed., 101.

Verde Porro. – Perhaps the same as the Prasino of the middle ages. It is mentioned in the Paduan MS., also by Pozzo in his instructions for painting in fresco, and by Baldinucci;⁵ the latter states that it was a pigment of a whitish green colour, like that of the leek, whence it takes its name. It appears that during the middle ages the juice of the leek was actually used as a pigment.⁶

⁵ Voc. Dis.

⁶ See p. 156.

Various artificial green pigments were prepared from copper which were known to medieval painters under the names of viride salsum, viride Hispanicum, viride Rothomagense, and viride Græcum. In the last may be traced the verdigris (verd de Grèce)⁷ of the moderns.

⁷ See Mr. Eastlake’s ‘Materials,’ &c., p. 118.

The best kind of verdigris was prepared at Marseilles by a process which has been frequently described.

This pigment was known to the Spaniards by the names of verdete and cardenillo. Verdigris was generally purified by redissolving it in vinegar, and then suffering it to crystallize in large crystals, by the evaporation of the vinegar, when it was sold under the name of “distilled” or “crystallized verdigris” and “verde eterno.”

 Verdetto. – There are several pigments of this name. 1. A mineral green pigment which, according to Borghini and Baldinucci, is found in the mountains of Germany; this probably was mountain green or malachite, the green carbonate of copper. 2. A vegetable pigment mentioned by Lomazzo and in the Paduan MS., which was of a yellowish colour, apparently of the nature of brown pink; Haydocke called this colour holy green. 3. An artificial green pigment prepared from copper, called “Verdet” in the Brussels MS.,¹ and Verdete by the Spanish. These two pigments differ in the mode of preparation.

¹ P. 806.

Verde eterno. – Another name for distilled or crystallized verdigris.² It is a neutral acetate of copper, prepared by dissolving verdigris in hot acetic acid, and leaving the filtered solution to cool. It forms beautiful dark green crystals. It is said to have been much used by the Venetian painters. This colour is mentioned by Volpato, who remarks,³ “Il verde eterno si cristalino chiaro e di color vivace.” Baldinucci says⁴ it was so called because it never lost its brightness, as all other greens did. He adds that this was nothing else but a glazing of purified verdigris spread thin over silver leaf.⁵

² Marcucci, Saggio, &c., p. 74. ³ P. 744.

⁴ Voc. Dis. ⁵ See also Mr. Eastlake’s ‘Materials,’ p. 458.

Green pigments prepared from vegetables are numerous. The principal of these are sap green, the verde di vesicha and pasta verde of the Italians, prepared from the berries of the buckthorn (Spincervino – Rhamnus catharticus). The juice being boiled down was inspissated, and when dry was preserved in bladders.

Lily or Iris green (verde giglio).—This pigment was sometimes prepared for use by dipping pieces of linen (pezzette) into the juice and then preserving them dry. Green pigments were also prepared from rue, parsley, columbine, and from the black nightshade (the herba morella of the Italians, which must be distinguished from the “maurelle” or Croton tinctorium). The juice of this plant was incorporated with green earth; in this respect it resembled the pigments called by the French stils de grain, prepared from the berries of the Rhamnus infectorius (grain d’Avignon). The colour of these pigments varied from a brownish green (brown pink) to yellow.

It was generally considered that mixed greens, composed of blue and yellow, were more permanent than any of the before-mentioned green pigments. They were frequently compounded of ultramarine and orpiment, of azzurro della magna and giallolino, of indigo and orpiment, and of one of the mineral blues with a yellow lake.¹

¹ See Cennini, cap. 53, 54, 55; Borghini, p. 170.

Verdigris, and especially distilled verdigris, or verde eterno, was extensively employed by all the Italian schools for glazing, and especially by the Venetian, and the brilliant green draperies on the pictures of this school were produced by this colour.

Verdigris was sometimes added to black to make it dry,² but Le Brun remarks³ that it must only be used in the shadows, for it is a poison in painting, and kills all the colours with which it is mixed. It appears, from the Paduan MS.⁴ to have been sometimes mixed with vegetable greens and yellows, and also with umber and indigo for making dark green. It should, however, be used alone; and De Piles observes¹ that if the smallest particle of it enter into the priming of a picture, it is sufficient to ruin it. It is even necessary, he adds, to avoid using with other colours the brushes which have been employed for verdigris.

² Volpato, p. 747.

³ P. 823, and see De Piles, Elémens, &c., p. 124. Félibien, Principes, &c., 300. ⁴ P. 652.

¹ Elémens, &c., p. 124.

Lionardo da Vinci remarks² that it was liable not only to fade, but to be removed from the picture by washing it with water, unless a coat of varnish was passed over it.

² Trattato, cap. xcix.

Volpato also notices the solubility of this colour in water, and remarks that it must be removed from the palette before the latter is put into water to preserve the colours when the day’s work is over. In the Venetian school it appears the colour was usually laid on with varnish.

Pacheco directs³ that purified verdigris should be ground in oil for the first painting, but for the last glazing varnish should be added. Lebrun says⁴ that to make a very beautiful green for glazing, verdigris should be used with varnish; it will then be very beautiful, and will not fade. In another place he observes,⁵ “Verdigris is very good, if employed with fat oil.”

³ Tratado, p. 389. ⁴ P. 813. ⁵ P. 815.

Verdigris is liable to turn black in time, and when in this state the surface has been removed by a penknife, and the colour beneath was found to be perfectly fresh and bright.

Borghini states⁶ that terra verde was used in all three (fresco, oil, and tempera) kinds of painting. Lebrun remarks:⁷ “Verd de terre is used in the shades of flesh-colour, but it must be employed sparingly, for with age the colour appears crude, which would produce a bad effect.” Mérimée observes⁸ that Rubens had made great use of this colour, not only in landscapes but in his carnations. He concurs with Le Brun in the fact of the colour deepening in time, and states that for this reason terre verde should be employed cautiously. There are frequent notices in Italian writers of terre verte being employed in painting the shades of flesh, but it is not always clear whether the pigment was used raw or burnt. Thus Malvasia,¹ in speaking of Simone Cantarini’s method of painting flesh, remarks, “He was therefore as partial to white lead as he was inimical to lake and umber for his outlines and shades; in which he used to employ plenty of ultramarine and terra verde, learning from Guido the value of these two colours in painting delicate shadows.” It is very possible that as the terra verde was used for the shadows, it might have been burnt. Lomazzo directs² that the shadow colour for flesh should be made with nero di campana and burnt terra verde, or with umber and burnt terra verde; and the Paduan MS.³ states that umber, burnt terra verde, and asphaltum were used for the same purpose.

⁶ Riposo, p. 169. ⁷ P. 813. ⁸ De la Peinture à l’Huile, p. 192.

¹ Fels. Pitt., vol. ii. p. 448.

² Trattato, p. 302.

³ P. 650.

Brown Pigments.

The brown pigments used in the middle ages were very few; those employed by the Italians were not numerous, and they are frequently classed with black pigments. The principal were bistre, which is mentioned by medieval writers under the name of fuligo and by Lomazzo under that of fuligine; umber, raw and burnt; Cologne earth, burnt terra verde, and asphaltum.

Umber is a hydrate of oxide of iron mixed with a variable quantity of oxide of manganese and a small proportion of clay.⁴ Mérimée says it contains silica and alumina also. The best is reputed to be brought from the Levant, although it is really the produce of

⁴ De Brongniart, Essaie des Arts Céramiques, p. 539.

Cyprus.¹ This was probably imported into Venice, and thence to other parts of Europe, particularly to Spain, where the Venetian umber was sold under the name of sombra di Venezia.²

¹ Mérimée, p. 206. ² Palomino, vol. ii. pp. 52, 149.

Besides its use in painting as a shadow colour both in flesh³ and yellow draperies⁴ and for all colours lighter than itself,⁵ it was sometimes boiled with oil as a drier both for painting and mordants.⁶ It was also occasionally added to grounds,⁷ but for this purpose it was not generally approved.⁸ Umber was sometimes called falzalo by the Italians.⁹ Mixed with fine lake, it was used as a glazing colour for shadows.

³ Pp. 650, 654. Malvasia, Fels. Pitt., vol. ii. p. 448. Palomino, vol. ii. pp. 62—64. Lomazzo, Trattato, pp. 191, 312.

⁴ Palomino, vol. ii. p. 66. ⁵ Lomazzo, Trattato, p. 197.

⁶ Borghini, p. 176. Paduan MS., p. 740. ⁷ Volpato, pp. 730, 746, n. ⁸ P. 813. Mérimée, p. 206. ⁹ Lomazzo, Trattato, p. 191.

Cologne earth, a bituminous earth, which, although a powerful colour, has the disadvantage of fading and of drying very slowly. The former, according to Mérimée, is prevented by mixing it with very durable pigments, the latter can only be remedied by the addition of a drier to the oil. This pigment does not appear to have been known to Lomazzo, Borghini, or the early Italian writers. Neither does the name occur in any of the treatises in this work, nor in the ‘Principes de Peinture’ of Félibien, nor the ‘Elémens de Peinture’ of De Piles. It seems to have been used principally by the Flemish and Dutch painters.¹⁰ It is, however, stated to have been employed by the Venetian painters, but this appears to require confirmation.

¹⁰ Mr. Eastlake’s ‘Materials,’ &c., p. 462.

When terra verde is burnt over a slow fire,¹¹ and the heat gradually increased until the pigment is roasted, it is converted into a fine warm brown, which was used, mixed with other colours, by the Italians for the shadows of flesh.¹² Modern writers do not mention this colour, but the use of it has been revived by an eminent English artist, under the name of “Verona brown.”

¹¹ P. 745.

¹² P. 650. Lomazzo, Trattato, p. 191.

Asphaltum, Bitume Giudaico, Nero di Spalto. – Several kinds of asphaltum are used in the arts. The best is considered to be the Egyptian. This will dissolve neither in oil, water, nor turpentine, but it must be fused, and then mixed with linseed oil.¹ There is little doubt from the descriptions of Borghini² and Baldinucci,³ that the old masters used the Egyptian asphaltum, since they mention that it was brought from the Lake of Sodom. Other kinds of asphaltum are brought from China, France, Neufchâtel, and Naples. That brought from Naples is reputed to be best next in goodness to the Egyptian. It will dissolve in oil, but never yields that intense black to the same quantity of oil as the real Egyptian. This is probably the kind now employed by the Italians, who dissolve it in oil, spirit of turpentine, and Venice turpentine. It is not always easy to procure genuine asphaltum. Watin remarks⁴ that it was frequently adulterated with pitch, and that what is generally sold for asphaltum in Holland is nothing but the residuum left after the distillation of oil of amber. Mr. Wilson Neil states that a similar kind of factitious asphaltum is now made in London, which is not inferior to the best Egyptian. This consists of the residuum left from burning linseed-oil and resin. The mixture of resin with asphaltum may be detected by spirit of wine, which dissolves the resin, but not the asphaltum.⁵

¹ Wilson Neil on the Manufacture of Varnishes, Trans. Soc. Arts, vol. xlix. p. 57. ² Riposo, p. 164. ³ Voc. Dis.

⁴ L’Art du Vernisseur, p. 216. ⁵ Marcucci, Saggio, &c., p. 95.

Lomazzo says⁶ that it was used to give brightness to light and chesnut hair. Boschini states⁷ that it was much employed by Andrea Schiavone, who used it in glazing the shades of the flesh in undraped figures, – that Giacomo Bassano (il Vecchio) employed it mixed with lake in the ultimate retouchings, and that he glazed with this colour all the shadows indifferently, whether of flesh, or drapery, or other things. In the Paduan MS. it is stated to be used for the shadows of flesh mixed with umber and burnt terra verde.¹

⁶ Trattato, p. 198. ⁷ Ricche Minere.

¹ P. 650.

Palomino² classes asphaltum among the useless colours, and says its place may be supplied with bone black, mixed with fine carmine and ancorca; that it is a bad drier, and requires the addition of a mordant to make it dry: he adds, that there is no doubt it was used by the great colourists, especially in Seville and Granada, although one may do miracles without it. Volpato directs³ that it should be mixed with boiled oil and verdigris to make it dry.

² Museo Pictorico, vol. ii. p. 53. ³ P. 747.

The evidence of a modern Italian writer⁴ and of several restorers of pictures is decidedly in favour of its having been used as a glazing colour only; according to the latter it was dissolved in oil or spirit of turpentine, and applied, like other glazing colours, with the hand, which insured its being thinly and evenly spread. But even as a glazing colour, it grew darker in time,⁵ and the obscurity, so frequently observed and regretted, of many Italian pictures, is attributed to the excessive use of asphaltum. The fact that the Neapolitan asphaltum does not yield so intense a black to the same quantity of oil as the Egyptian, with its known property of darkening with age on paintings, would seem to suggest the propriety of using the Egyptian asphaltum, which being intensely black at first, would probably be less likely to increase in colour. Its extreme blackness would at least cause it to be employed sparingly and very thinly as a shadow colour.

⁴ Marcucci, pp. 95, 208. ⁵ Bald., Voc. Dia.

Marcucci describes a liquid preparation of asphaltum composed in the following manner: one part of Venice turpentine and one and a half part of spirit of turpentine are put into a bottle which is to be placed in a sand-bath to liquefy; two parts of asphaltum are then to be added in powder, and the whole is to be stirred and left over the fire until it boils. When it has boiled for one hour, it is to be removed from the fire, and before it cools a little nut-oil is to be added to give it a proper consistence, and when it is used a small quantity of mastic varnish and some kind of drier are to be added. This, he says, is an excellent colour for glazing, but it must be used sparingly, as it deepens its colour with age.

Mummy is by some¹ considered to be the same as asphaltum, but Marcucci² states that the colour of the former is warmer, and the smell more aromatic, and that its external character is different. He remarks that it is a fine colour for glazing oil-paintings, especially in the carnations; it is ground with nut-oil, and is used with varnish and a drier.

¹ Palomino, vol. ii. p. 53. ² Saggio, &c., p. 95.

Black Pigments.

The principal black pigments were terra nera, coal, terra nera di Campana, nero di schiuma di ferro, and charcoal of various kinds; namely, burnt ivory and bones, oak and vine branches, stones of peaches, shells of almonds, paper, smoke of resin, and of nut-oil.

Terra nera, which may certainly be considered synonymous with terre noire, is identified by De Mayerne with “crayon noir,” or “black chalke.”³ The Italians procured terra nera from several places. Cennini⁴ mentions a black stone brought from Piedmont, used for drawing and painting, which he describes as soft and unctuous. Later Italian writers mention terra nera di Roma and terra nera di Venezia; the latter was procured from Verona. Borghini says¹ that nero di terra is a native unctuous pigment, which may be used in fresco, oil, and tempera painting. The name of this pigment occurs in the Paduan MS.² Lomazzo³ does not appear to distinguish it from nero di scaglia.

³ Mr. Eastlake’s ‘Materials,’ &c., p. 466. ⁴ Cap. 34.

¹ Riposo, p. 164. ² P. 650. ³ Trattato, p. 192.

A black pigment from common coal (charbon de terre) does not appear to be mentioned by Italian writers, although it is said, on the authority of Lebrun,⁴ to have been much used in Italy for external painting, because it was more durable than any other. Mr. Eastlake has shown⁵ that it was frequently employed by the Flemish and Dutch painters. The tint furnished by coal mixed with oil is stated to be brownish.

⁴ P. 812 and n.

⁵ Materials, &c., p. 467.

Terra nera di Campana is made from a certain crust which forms on the moulds in which bells and artillery are cast. It is used in all three kinds of painting, but in a short time it fades and spoils the pictures. It is mentioned by Borghini,⁶ by Baldinucci,⁷ and by Lomazzo.⁸

⁶ Riposo, p. 164. ⁷ Voc. Dis.

⁸ Trattato, p. 193.

Nero di Schiuma di Ferro was composed of scales of iron mixed with terra verde and finely ground. Borghini, Lomazzo, and Baldinucci mention this colour.

Ivory Black is distinguished by many writers from bone black. It is described as being intensely black, and very transparent. Lebrun remarks that if it is steeped in vinegar and dried in the sun, it cannot be effaced.

Bone Black was prepared from the bones of various animals, but Palomino states⁹ that the best kind was prepared from the bones of pigs, although the bones of stags and oxen were sometimes used. Others employed mutton bones. It is represented to be of a reddish colour, which may even be converted into brown by arresting the carbonization before it is complete, and to dry very slowly. In grinding it with oil it is necessary to add with more facility than with any other colour, in order to add with more facility the necessary quantity of fat or drying oil.¹

⁹ Museo Pictorico, vol. ii. p. 53.

¹ Constant de Massoul, p. 215.

The blacks made from vegetable charcoal are not of so intense a black as those of ivory and bone;² of these some painters preferred the black made from burnt vine-branches, sometimes called blue black,³ which Borghini says⁴ is excellent for painting in oil. Other authors mention the charcoal of burnt oak stripped of the bark,⁵ of the stones of peaches, and of the shells of almonds.⁶ The black of peach stones when mixed with white has a blue tint. Lamp black is used in oil painting, although not approved of by many writers.⁷ It is always necessary to calcine it before it is used in oil painting.⁸ Ink, and especially printing-ink, was formerly made of the soot collected from burning resin or oil in a paper lantern. This is the ink of which Cennini speaks in the early part of his book. It was also used by Lionardo da Vinci⁹ mixed with lake for the darkest shades, and Vasari relates that Fra Bartolomeo wishing to imitate the colouring of Lionardo on a certain picture, also employed this colour and burnt ivory, and that the picture had darkened much in consequence. To the same cause Vasari attributes the darkening of the colours in the ‘Transfiguration’ of Raphael.¹⁰

² Mérimée, p. 208.

³ Constant de Massoul, p. 215.

⁴ Riposo, p. 164; and see Cennini, Trattato, cap. xxxvii.

⁵ Palomino, vol. ii. p. 54. Borghini, p. 164.

⁶ Cennini, cap. 37. Borghini, p. 164. Baldinucci, Voc. Dis.

⁷ See p. 823. ⁸ Marcucci, p. 167. Mérimée, p. 209.

⁹ Trattato, c. 353; and see Vasari, Vita di Fra Bartolomeo.

¹⁰ Vasari, Vita di Raffaello da Urbino.

Another charcoal black was procured from the ashes of paper, burnt in a closed iron tube and afterwards ground with water.¹¹ This black pigment is mentioned by Borghini¹ and by Baldinucci, and appears to be still made in Italy. Marcucci² states that he had found it a very good black, and that it did not deepen in colour like some other blacks.

¹¹ Marcucci, p. 167.

¹ Riposo, p. 164. ² Saggio, p. 208.

Black pigments are considered slow in drying. Volpato directs³ that boiled oil and verdigris should be added to lamp-black to make it dry.⁴ The Paduan MS.⁵ recommends the addition of ground glass, which it is stated will make the colour dry in twenty-four hours. Baldinucci⁶ says black earth, bone black, and lamp black require the addition of litharge or ground glass to the boiled oil.

³ P. 747. ⁴ P. 822.

⁵ P. 666. ⁶ Voc. Dis.

From the preceding account of the principal colours used in painting it will be seen that, notwithstanding the numerous names by which pigments were known in different countries and at different periods, the real number was not in fact so great as might be at first imagined. This is exemplified in the various names by which the blue carbonate of copper and the red ores of iron were formerly known.

It will also be observed that the colours lost or fallen into disuse are the native mineral pigments, for which artificial preparations of a similar nature have been substituted. Thus the native yellow and red orpiment have been superseded by the artificial pigments which bear these names, and which, besides the usual defects of artificial as compared with native pigments, have the additional disadvantage of being more poisonous. Instead of the native giallorino, or Naples yellow, we have the modern pigment composed of the oxides of lead and antimony, known under the name of Naples yellow. Instead of the native carbonates of copper we have the artificial preparations. Native minium and native cinnabar have also fallen into disuse. The only exception, perhaps, besides the natural yellow and red ochres, is ultramarine, for which no perfect substitute, possessing properties in every respect equally eligible, has yet been discovered. With the exception of these natural pigments, the colours lost are of little value.

It will be also observed that the more durable lakes prepared from kermes and lac have been superseded by the more brilliant, but less permanent, lake from cochineal.

Another source of confusion, and which has much increased the difficulty of identifying pigments, has arisen from giving the name of a well-known pigment to another which resembled it in colour, but which in other respects differed essentially. Among pigments of this description may be enumerated sandarace, sandaraca, which has been used to denote red orpiment, red lead, and massicot; minium, the ancient term for vermilion, and the modern term for red lead; cinnabar, used to signify a red earth and vermilion; smalto, smaltino, sometimes applied to a vitreous blue pigment coloured with smalt, sometimes to one coloured with copper; indigo, used to denote both woad and indigo; arzica, which signified both a yellow lake and a native ochreous pigment; verdetto, which denoted sometimes a native mineral green pigment, sometimes an artificial mineral pigment of the same colour, and sometimes a vegetable green pigment.

Finally, the confusion has been increased by adopting foreign names instead of the original term; thus one of the old pigments called giallorino is now known in Italy under the term massicot, and the original appellation is almost lost.