ENCAUSTIC PAINTING. 



dissolved or corroded by any chemical menstrum ; nor, like the 

 glassy colours of enamel, to ru:i out of the drawing on the fire. 

 This method is described in the second part of the xlixth volume of 

 the Philosophical Transactions, No. 100. Yet, notwithstanding 

 the ingenuity of this communication, we find the ancient or some 

 similar method of painting in wax remained a desideratum upwards 

 of twenty-five yearsj and till, in 1787, a method was communi- 

 cated to the Society of Arts by Miss Greenland. The ground of 

 her information she received at Florence, through the acquaintance 

 of an amateur of painting, who procured her the satisfaction of 

 seeing some paintings in the ancient Grecian style, executed by sig- 

 nora Parent!, a professor of that place, who had been instructed by 

 a Jesuit at Pavia, the person who made the farthest discoveries in 

 that art. Miss Greenland's friend, knowing she was fond of paint, 

 ing, informed her what were the materials the paintress used, but 

 could not tell her the proportions of the composition ; however, 

 from her anxiety to succeed in such an acquisition, she made va. 

 rious experiments, and at last obtained such a sufficient knowledge 

 of the quantities of the different ingredients as to begin and finish 

 a picture, which she afterwards presented to the society for their 

 inspection. 



Her method is as follows : u Take an ounce of white wax, and 

 the same weight of gum mastich powdered. Put the wax in a 

 glazed earthen vessel over a very slow fire ; and when it is quite 

 dissolved, strew in the mastich, a little at a time, stirring the wax 

 continually until the whole quantity of gum is perfectly melted and 

 incorporated : then throw the paste into cohl water, and when it 

 is hard, take it out of the water, wipe it dry, and beat it in one of 

 Mr. Wedgewood's mortars, observing to pound it at first in a linen 

 cloth to absorb some drops of water that will remain in the paste, 

 and would prevent the possibility of reducing it to a powder, which 

 must be so fine as to pass through a thick gauze. It should be 

 pounded in a cold place, and but a little while at a time, as after 

 long beating the friction will in a degree soften the wax and gum, 

 and .instead of their becoming a powder they will return to a paste. 



11 Make strong gum arabic water, and when you paint, take a 

 little of the powder, some colour, nnd mix them together with the 

 gum water. Li^ht colours require but a small quantity of the 

 powder, but more of it must be put in proportion to the body and 



