Coral and several other substances are also imitated by combining about nine parts of very clear glue to one of glycerine. This is qualified with one equivalent of white zinc or dye-stuffs. Thus the glue basis is combined with colcothar, ochre-sepia, umber, ochre, or chrome. This is also a valuable cement for mending a great variety of objects.
Any fine white shells ground to powder may be combined with gum and a very little glycerine and vermilion to make artificial coral; also white glue or gelatine with glycerine. This may be made in quantity for casts of all kinds of objects, such as plates in inlaid work.
RESTORING AND REPAIRING PICTURES
“The restoration of disfigured and decayed works of art is next in importance to their production.”—Field, Chromatography.
I published in 1864 a work entitled The Egyptian Sketch Book, which began with the following abridged account of how oil pictures are cleaned:—
“Three young painters had often heard what the American Page has proved, that by carefully peeling the pictures of certain great artists, coat by coat, one may learn all their secrets of colour. So, having obtained an undoubted Titian, representing the Holy Virgin, they laid it on a table and proceeded to remove the outer varnish by means of friction with the fingers; which varnish very soon rose up in a cloud of white dust, and acted very much as a shower of snuff would have done.
“Then they arrived at the ‘naked colours,’ which had by this time assumed a very crude form, owing to the fact that a certain amount of liquorish tincture, as of Turkey rhubarb, or tinct. rhabarbara, had become incorporated with the varnish, and to which the colours had been indebted for their golden warmth.
“This brought them to the glazing proper, which had been deprived of the evidence of the age or antiquity by the removal of the patinæ, or little cups, which had formed in the canvas between the web and the woof.
“The next process was to remove the glaze from the saffron robe, composed of yellow lake and burnt sienna. This brought them to a flame colour, in which the modelling had been made. They next attacked the robe of the Virgin Mary, and having taken away the crimson lake, were astonished to find a greenish drab. When they had thus in turn removed every colour in the picture, dissecting every part by diligent care, loosening every glaze by solvents too numerous to mention—including alcohol and various adaptations of alkali—they had the ineffable satisfaction of seeing the design in a condition of crude, blank chiaroscuro. Blinded by enthusiasm, having made careful notes of all they had done, they flew at the white and black with pumice-stone and potash; when, lo and behold! something very rubicund appeared, which further excavation declared was the tip of the red—nose of King George the Fourth! The Titian for which they had sacrificed so much was a false god.”
The foregoing extracts were dictated by the late Henry Merritt, a very distinguished restorer and artist, the author of Pictures and Art separated in the Works of the Old Masters, and other works of which I can truly say that the name Merritt indicates that nomen est omen. I was often by him while at his work, and had the benefit of seeing the processes employed and the progress which he made in bringing to light the “buried beauties” of pictures by great artists. What I have since learned in addition will be found in the following pages.