In order to do this little painting on gilded paper, first I had to attach some 23 karat gold to the paper. This has been done since ancient and medieval times by various methods. The method I used consists of coating the paper with a fairly quick drying varnish, When the varnish is set up, but not dry you lay the gold on it in little sheets. Care must be taken such that the varnish is not still to wet, in which case the gold keeps it from drying, or too dry, in which case the gold will not stick.
I am fond of reading directions for this kind of work in old manuscripts and books, because there is a lot of useful information, but for the most part, because they give such a vivid portrait of the extremely, “real” conditions and practices of art before everything was available by mass production in stores. From the text that follows one gets an idea of how fully art and life could become one and the same thing.
FROM CENNINI’S CRAFTSMAN’S HANDBOOK, WRITTEN ABOUT 1435.
How to make a mordant from garlic, for gilding:
“Take clean garlic bulbs and pound them in a mortar, and
then squeeze them through a linen cloth two or three
times. Take this juice,and work up a little white lead
and red clay with it as fine as ever you can.Then scrape
it up and keep it in a little covered dish; and keep it for
the older and more seasoned it gets, the better it will be.
Do not use small garlic bulbs, nor young ones; but get
them about half grown. And when you want to use
any of this mordant, put a little of it in a glazed
dish, with a small amount of urine, and stir it up thoroughly
with a straw, according to your judgment. You may gild with this
mordant after half an an hour in the way described...........”
I didn’t use this recipe, but a modern formula instead.
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