A rabbit hole full of adhesive

Via

I was going to start testing glue ideas since there didn't seem to be that many options of plausible historical glues. But first, first, I figured I'd have a look at the history of wallpaper and see if I could find a little more information on Jerome Lanyer's 1635 patent to manufacture. I thought maybe I could find some more direction for what types of glues could be. I found Wallpaper,its History, Production, and Possibilities by Henry G. Dowling with a couple more clues about the early history of wallpapers. I did find out that Jerome Lanyer received his parent from Charles I on May 1, 1635 for a process he called "Londraindiana," and paid 10 (the book didn't specify 10 what) a year to keep the lucrative right to make flocked hangings. I found out that these were not printed on paper because paper wasn't strong enough. I also found the flock referred to as wool dust. I also found a date of 1620 for a French maker of flocked hangings called La Francois of Rouen.

From there I got pointed to a 1758 book on painting, enameling, and other techniques with recipes for paints,varnishes, sizes, etc, by Robert Dossie titled Handmaid to the Arts. There's an appendix to the two volumes called "On the Manufacturing of Paper Hangings" that is pointed to as the major source on early papers, including info on flocking.  He discusses alternating large and small knives for chopping wool rags into flock as well as the use of a mill. He also talks about the application of the flock: "Flock requires to be put on with the varnish." He suggests printing the varnish then removing the hanging to another table "to be strewed over with flock that is later to be gently compressed by a board or some other flat body, to make the varnish take better hold of it."

In the earlier sections on the gilding of bookbinding papers and leather, Dossie also has some information that should transfer. He mentions that the size is put on a wooden plate or block rather than on with a brush. In addition to both gold size, he mentions that, "the size should be thickened with as much yellow ocher and red lead as the proper working of the print will admit." The size is applied to the block by setting it evenly onto a cushion that has been evenly brushed with size." This technique is an accurate discussion of the color sieve or color box technique that is used by modern block printers where a felt pad is saturated with color and then put on a stretched membrane that floats on some starch. This ensures even and consistent uptake of the color as you can't press too hard without the force being dispersed.

From Dossie I took a detour to The Grove Encyclopedia of Materials and Techniques in Art by Gerald W.R. Ward where I found the cool box for shaking the paper is a late 18th, early 19th century innovation and the earlier flocking would have been done with a longer staple fiber, and by hand. It also mentions the adhesive made from boiled linseed oil and letharge (that's lead oxide folks.) Back to Dossie, I find recipes for varnish and sizes. There's a glover's size which is boiled scraps of leather, making a gelatin glue that would be used warm too, but it doesn't quite fit the "varnish" definition.

So then I went off looking for suggestions on how to make boiled linseed oil without getting lead poisoning. I found Indra Kneepken's Master's Thesis for the university of Amsterdam. "Understanding historical recipes for the modification of linseed oil: An experimental study in the properties of modified linseed oil for use as binding medium in early Northern European panel painting". It is 150 pages of fascinating. That has sent me off digging through multiple Medieval manuscripts of recipes and back into Cennini as well.

I guess that's the long winded way of letting you know that I've gotten nothing done today but a bunch of reading? And my glue experiments are going to wait until I give this a few more reads and look up a few more references. I think the answer is here. Not as straightforward as "use rabbit glue" or "try some glair," but i'm actually very happy about that. i didn't think those solutions were going to work and this very well may. i like it much better than just grabbing a jar of modern glue off the shelf and doing that.


Further reading:
"Color and Other Materials of Historic Wallpaper" by Catherine Lynn, Journal of the American Institute of Conservation, 1981   http://www.cool.conservation-us.org/coolaic/jaic/articles/jaic20-02-003.html
 Handmaid to the Arts by Robert Dossie, 1758. This link does not include the appendix, but there is a great deal of information on varnish and sizes that I am finding helpful  https://archive.org/details/handmaidtoartsb00dossgoog

Gilding under glass

Italian verre eglomise devotional pendant 1600 Metropolitan Museum of Art

Reading Cennini is giving me far too many ideas. Chapter 172 is about making mosaics from egg shells and the quills of feathers. It also has an early description of how to do verre eglomise. Cennini refers to it as mosaic for the adornment of reliquaries, but it is the layered working of gilded glass that will eventually go by the French term.

It was a very popular technique used for religious pendants between 1300 and 1600 and the Italians were well known for it. The Victoria and Albert have a number of pieces. Some of my favorites in this time period  that turned up in a quick search:
 German reliquary pendant 1550-1600. 
Spanish or possibly Italian pendant, early 17th century.
1550-1600 Italian pendant.

What really has me intrigued, however, is this rosary from the V&A's exhibition "At Home in Renaissance Italy" borrowed from the Museo Civico d'Arte Antica e Palazzo Madama in Turin. The rosary beads are made in two parts with gilding and painting of the verre eglomise type in between, held together by metal settings.

http://www.vam.ac.uk/vastatic/microsites/1487_renaissance/devotion.html

Chris Laning did a fascinating series of posts on her Paternoster blog regarding this and a similar piece. Crystal gazing.

So, I've been pondering how exactly I would go about making something like that. I think I have some ideas involving Cennini's gilding instructions, glass cabachons, bronze tape, a soldering iron, a drill, and a bit of crazy. I'm certainly looking forward to trying. First I've got to finish the leather applique, however, so I don't keep adding to my pile of half finished projects. Just one and a half of the original six motifs left to do.

New plan-- back to daily updates, and on to some printing.

Block printed linen in Victoria and Albert Museum.  Italian 1350-1400 

 

 

 I just haven't been doing as well with accomplishing things this time around and I'm beginning to think that it has something to do with not having all the mini deadlines. So, that is my new plan. Regardless of if I finish something or not I absolutely have to find something interesting to say and post a picture every single day. For every day I do it I get a dollar towards buying Moda a Firenze.  There's less than 100 days left, but if I'm close I get to buy it anyway.

Cappotto is basically stalled with the second guard to go. I think I'm going to put it aside for awhile and actually finish something before I get bogged down in it. I was going to do the corset next and start the dress so I'd feel really accomplished, but I have lost 13 pounds in the last 3 weeks (YAY!) so I'm going to wait as I had originally planned and do it really close to the end. I know that isn't the best plan and puts me in danger of not finishing the dress, but I really don't want a dress that doesn't fit when I'm through

So, tomorrow's plan is to try some block printing of fabric using the instructions from Cennini's Il Libro dell'Arte. He discusses block printing on fabric in chapter 173 "The way to work on cloth by printing from a shape in color (lavorare colla forma dipinti in panno.)"  The linen is stretched on a frame and then the color is applied to the block with the palm of a gloved hand. The block is brought to the fabric from the bottom and burnished by another board on top in order to make the impression. Once the outline is in place the fabric is removed from the frame, spread out on a table and other colors "without body" are applied with a brush.  I think my Q-snap quilting frame that I use for large scale embroidery will make a good substitution for the wooden stretcher frame. I had considered carving a block, but I might cheat and use some large stamps instead. 

The plan is to print enough blue linen to make drawers. Cennini specifically says when using light blue fabric (biava) to use biacca or white lead for the outlines rather than black. He follows that up with basically says to mix your colors with the grounds as you fancy and feel go together, "one thing will teach you another, both by practice and the knowledge given by your intelligence. The reason? that every art is in its nature ingenious and pleasing: che ne piglia se n'ha (he that takes, hath). And similarly the contrary happens."

I will be doing white (not lead) for my outlines and then adding some gold for color. Guess we'll see how it goes. The way I figure it, if I do a terrible job, they're drawers and really won't be seen much anyway. I've been dieing to try printing fabric and collecting documentation on it for quite some time now so figured now is as good a time to start as any.