Ispahan Tiles, of the period of Shah-Abbas—16th century—are remarkable for exquisite design.
Italian Earth. Burnt Roman ochre; resembles Venetian red in colour; and, mixed with white, yields valuable flesh-tints. (Fairholt.)
Italian Pink, or yellow lake. A transparent bright-coloured pigment, liable to change. (See Yellow Lake, Pinks.)
Italian Varnish. A mixture of white wax and linseed oil, used as a vehicle in painting. It has good consistency, flows freely from the pencil, and is useful for glazing.
Ivory Black. A pigment prepared by heating ivory shavings in an iron cylinder; when from bone, it is called bone black (q.v.). The real ivory black is a fine, transparent, deep-toned pigment, extremely valuable in oil and water-colour painting. The bone black (commonly sold as ivory black) is much browner.
Fig. 401. Ivory carving. Sword-hilt of the 16th century.
Fig. 402. Ivory carving. Spoon of the 16th century.
Ivory Carving. This art, in considerable perfection, was known to prehistoric man at the period of the so called stone age. Egyptian and Assyrian specimens of the art are of a date at least as early as that of Moses. From the year 1000 B.C. down to the Christian era, there was a constant succession of artists in ivory in the western Asiatic countries, in Egypt, in Greece, and in Italy. From the time of Augustus, ivory carving shared in the general decline of art. Increasing in number as they come nearer to the Middle Ages, we can refer to carved ivories of every century, preserved in museums in England and abroad. The most important ivories up to the 7th century are the consular diptychs, originally a favourite form of presents from newly-appointed consuls to eminent persons; subsequently adapted to Christian uses, or as wedding presents, &c. In the Middle Ages, from the 8th to the 16th century, the use of ivory was adopted for general purposes. The favourite subjects of the carvings are those drawn from the romances of the Middle Ages—especially the romance of the Rose—and in the 15th century, scenes of domestic life, illustrating the dress, armour, and manners and customs of the day. Combs of every date, from the Roman and Anglo-Saxon period, and earlier, are found in British graves. In short, from the time when the first prehistoric carvings of antediluvian animals were made to the present, every age of human civilization appears to be more or less fully illustrated in carvings upon ivory and bone. (See also Chessmen.) The earliest material was found in the tusks of the mammoth: from Iceland we have beautiful carvings of the 7th century in the teeth of the walrus. Fossil tusks of the mammoth are found in great quantities in Siberia, and are almost the only material of the ivory-turner’s work in Russia. African and Asiatic elephant ivory are the best, and differ, the former, when newly cut, being of a mellow, warm, transparent tint. Asiatic ivory tends to become yellow by exposure. A fine specimen of carving in ivory is given in Fig. [403] from a Mirror-case of the 15th century. (See also Fig. [185], and illustrations to Pyx, Triptych, &c.)