2020 Essays

Ms. Fr. 640 in the World of Pigments in Sixteenth-Century Europe

Kirby, Jo

The discussion of painting in Ms. Fr. 640 forms a relatively small proportion of its content, but one that is significant. In most sixteenth-century compilations and “secrets” books, discussion of painting is largely limited to recipes for materials, often copied from elsewhere. Some, derived from earlier sources for manuscript illumination, describe how to paint particular details such as faces and hair of young people, or animals and birds. Ms. Fr. 640’s author-practitioner describes aspects of Flemish painting practice fairly accurately, perhaps from information received or from observation, and also mentions details of Italian painting practice, relating to painting faces. His account of materials treats their behavior in oil paint, rather than the list and description of individual pigments commonly found in other texts. This emphasis on practical painting in oil for a variety of purposes, including painting decorative metalwork and glass, is unusual in sources of this date, not found in such detail until the seventeenth century. The use of cristallin glass as a drier is described and, more interestingly, its additional ability to give translucency to opaque paint. The attention paid to the blue glass pigment smalt and its properties is unusual: it indicates some difficulties associated with its use, not discussed in other contemporary sources. Other blues, also green, red, yellow, white and black pigments are mentioned, but the author-practitioner’s particular interest is in translucency, which may relate to his interest in cast metalwork.