On Encaujlk Tainting. 1$ 



coverings of a mummy painted in this manner, which, by 

 the favour of our gracious prince, the noble patron and pro- 

 moter of the art3 and fciences, is e::poied to the view of 

 evcr\- connoifleur, in his elegant mufcum. The exigence of 

 wax on this Egyptian mummy may be discovered on a bare 

 view ; but I convinced myfeif by other proofs of a lefs du- 

 bious nature. 



Mod of the mummies, however, preferVcd in collections, 

 are painted with a fizc, which appears to be not unlike that 

 ufed in paintings with water colours [fittura a tempera) ; but 

 it is certain that the Egyptians differed much in their orna- 

 ments, and the bandages of the mummy above-mentioned 

 arc, on this account, more valuable and more worthy of 

 notice. 



I faw in the Britifh Mufcum a mummy which wa3 entirely 

 covered with glafly grains ; and the colour of fomc of 

 them gave me rcafon to conjecture that thefe ancient people 

 were acquainted with the effects of cobalt in fmalt, which 

 has however been considered as anew invention. I faw an- 

 other mummy at Paris, which had formerly belonged to the 

 celebrated Count Caylus : among other Angularities it had 

 fome ornaments of leaf gold upon a ground of chalk and 

 bolus, which is at prefent employed by the European gilders. 

 In the Royal Mufeum at Florence there is, befides others, 

 one with gilding of the like kind and very lively colours. But 

 I will not here enter into a panegyric of the Egyptians, who 

 aecomplifhed fo great things, and much earlier than the 

 Greeks or the Romans ; it will be fufficicnt to have ihewn, as 

 a point unknown in the hiftory of the arts, that thefe people 

 pracfifed encauftic painting, as appears beyond a doubt from 

 the before-mentioned fragment : but I w ill confefs that this 

 would be a barren knowledge if it did not lead us to other 

 ufeful refcarches. I muft obfervc, in the firft place, that no 

 oil-painting, perhaps of only two or three hundred years old, 

 exhibits a white paint that has kept fo well as that fcen on 

 the above fragment ; and tins circumftancefufficiently proves 



the 



