I Should be afraid to offer you the following Treatise if I could not flatter myself with the hope that its intrinsic Merit, and the Intention it was writ in, would in your noble and generous Mind counterbalance the Defects and Improprieties of Language, of which, as almost unavoidable to a Foreigner, it must of course be guilty of.
The subject I present you with is known to you long ago; you saw the first Essays and Experiments in Encaustic; You was pleased to approve of them, and to express some Satisfaction at the least Picture executed in this manner. With what greater Advantage could I usher this new Invention into the World, than dedicating it to You; to make it known that the Greatest Patron of Arts, and the best Judge of the Merits of Painting approved of it?—Count Caylus invented it; under the Sanction of your Lordship’s Name I offer it to the Public, and with a grateful Sense for all the Favours and Kindness You have at all Times shewn towards me.
I am, my Lord,
your Lordship’s
most obedient
and most obliged
humble Servant,
J. H. MÜNTZ.
ENCAUSTIC:
OR,
Method of Painting
In the Manner of the Ancients.
A relation of my proceedings, to reduce this singular invention into a regular system agreeable to reason, and practical in itself, would be tedious and superfluous: To enter upon the process without giving the reader some little account of the matter, would be improper. As something is required to introduce the reader, and as the books I must refer to are not in every body’s possession, I shall in lieu of introduction, insert the whole as laid before the Royal Society,—which is as follows.
Extract of a Letter[1]
From the Abbé Mazeas, F. R. S.
Concerning an ancient Method of Painting. Revived by Count Caylus.
Count Caylus, a member of the Academy of Inscriptions, had undertaken to explain an obscure passage in Pliny the naturalist. This author (whom I have not now before me) says in some place of his works, that “the ancients painted with burnt wax”[2] and we have it from tradition, that pictures of this kind were very durable.
This was the passage, the count undertook to clear up, in trying all the different ways that are possible to paint in wax; and after many experiments, he hit upon a very simple method, of which he made a secret, in order to excite the curiosity of the public.