142 On Encaujiic Painting. 



charters. Without ftudying good collections and Etrufcan 

 monuments, could it have been poffible to difcover the 

 alphabet of thefe ancient people? Without the repeated re- 

 fearches of travellers, could k have been hoped that Barthe- 

 lemi would explain the Palmyrean inferiptions ? Without 

 poflfeffmg and examining the nrefent fragment, or fomething 

 of the like kind, could any one with certainty determine the 

 remote period when the art [lie was praetifed., or 



difcover the true method in yhich it was . ployed? Bi^t 

 we lliall allow e to think on tiiis I'ubje6t is he" pleafes. 



Our academy re. > . rations: any thing elfe 



does not merit its attention. 



The firft fact, which I think I have proved, is, that the 

 Egyptians were acquainted with and practifed wax painting. 

 The fecend is the better prefervation of colours, and in 

 particular of the whiic, by means of encauftic, notwithftand- 

 ing the revolutions of many centuries. 



The third is, that the matter of the Egyptian white colours 

 is not metallic calces or oxydes, which at prefent are ufed 

 in oil painting. 



And the fourth, a deduction from the experiments made 

 of the component parts of the ancient encauftic, which differ 

 very much from thofe already made known. 



Thofe who are acquainted with the accuracy and certainty 

 of the method nut long fincc introduced into chemical ope- 

 rations, will be convinced that in 24 grains of the encauftic 

 painting, which I ventured to detach from the above-men- 

 tioned Egyptian fragment, in order to fubject it to examina- 

 tion, the mixture of an hundredth part of a foreign fubftanee 

 would have been difcovered with the greateft certainty ; that 

 the refin of Requcno mull undoubtedly have been percepti- 

 ble to me, and that the aleali of Baehelier and Lorgna could 

 not have efcaped the counteracting medium. But in this 

 Egyptian encauftic I found nothing except very pure wax, 

 though I varied my analyfia in every known method. I mud 

 therefore conclude that modern learned writers, at leaft in 



refpect 



