2020 Essays

Painting in Oil on Taffeta I

Bowen, Marilyn; Lou, Tianhe

This essay investigates the entry “Painting in oil on taffeta” on fol. 42v, a short recipe for a coating that can be applied to taffeta to prepare it to receive oil paint. In aim, the recipe is similar to a more detailed set of instructions on fol. 10v for making a priming coat to prevent oil paint from “running” or bleeding when painted on taffeta; however, the recipe on fol. 42v differs in materials and technique. As the recipe offers no quantities or proportions for the three ingredients, the essay questions whether this information was unknown to the author-practitioner, a workshop secret, or an implicit acknowledgement that quantities might need to be adjusted by trial and error to accommodate different pigments and oil binders.