Sunday, Nov 29
I began by taking about 15-25 hairs in bunches from the squirrel tail and cutting them off with scissors while holding them in a bundle. It was important to not let go of the bundle once it was cut, since the hairs are difficult to regather. I took out the very short hairs, keeping the bundle relatively “pointed” with each bundle peaking toward the longer hairs. This was difficult, and it was hard to keep each bundle arranged during the tying process.
Once the hairs were arranged, I dampened the bundle with water, and then tied the bundle with the thread. I wrapped the thread around about 5 times, but didn’t want to make the ends of the bundles too bulky.
Pictured are the two bundles made of the end pieces, and the four bundles made of the side pieces (the manuscript instructs that the end part of the tail should be used for the end of the brush, while the sides should be used for the sides.
I am predicting that in order to fill the quill, we will need at least 12 bundles of hair. I’m also worried that the hair isn’t going to “stick” in the brush but will be dragged out by the weight of the oil pigments.
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Monday, Nov 30
Danielle's kitchen
Having acquired our squirrel tail, we began by cutting the hair into bundles of roughly 20-25 hairs, cutting them off close to the tailbone as the manuscript prescribes, producing bundles roughly 1 mm in diameter. Keeping the bundles held tightly between our fingers, we stripped the shorter “guard hairs” from the bundle before wetting the bundle in clear water. Once the bundle was wet, it was much easier to handle, as the wetting caused all hairs to cohere into one unit. Each bundle was wrapped securely 4-5 times in thread, with the thread wrapped roughly ¼ inch from the base of the hair bundle (the side that was closest to the tailbone on the squirrel). We carefully kept the hairs from the sides of the tail separate from the hairs that had come from the end of the tail: Cennini recommends that the end hairs be used for the tip, while the side hairs be used for the side. Each brush was assembled using 7-9 bundles of hair, depending on the size of the quill to be filled.
The quill was cut from the feather and boiled for ten minutes in water over a kitchen stove. When removed, the quill was much more pliable than it had been prior to boiling, although this pliability only lasted for roughly a minute, after which the quill had cooled. We used scissors to cut the boiled quill into a ferrule of ¾ inches, cutting two opposing slits into one end of each quill. This slit was not mentioned by any authors, but was necessitated by our first trial. Before we used the slits, it was impossible to cram all of the hairs into the quill without compromising the arrangement of the hairs. With the slits cut into the quills, the end of the quill was large enough to preserve the arrangement of hairs, and could be sealed precisely around the girth of the hair bundle using thread.
Our greatest difficulty in inserting the hairs, once we had arranged the small bundles into the desired shape, was ensuring that the entire bundle was inserted into the quill. In order to keep the hairs from escaping the quill, for our second and third brush, we used a light coat of clear nail polish to keep the hairs in place. Once the hairs were inserted into the quill, we used thread to wrap the slitted quills closed.
Some notes on how my reconstruction differed from the original:
-I did not use a turning stick, but merely arranged the brush fiber bundles by hand. It was necessitated by the difficulty of recollecting the fibers into a bundle once i had "let go" of them. However, this may have impacted the "point" on the brush.
-Although I arranged the brushes with the end pieces in the center, I did not use a whisker as the center of the brush.
- My method of inserting the hairs into the quill used a slitted quill, which is not mentioned in any manuscript. This was necessitated by how difficult it was to get the hairs into the brush-- maybe this indicates that brush making was, in fact, a professional activity because it requires such specialized skills. On the other hand, perhaps the author-practicioner assumes that the reader will just improvise solutions.
- Given the near impossibility of inserting all hairs into the quill when the hairs were only wetted, I used nail laquer to induce the hairs to bundle flat. It is possible that glue was used for a similar purpose, but it is not mentioned in the manuscripts.
*
Research Notes
Brushes lit notes
Rosamond D. Harley, “Artists’ Brushes: historical evidence from the sixteenth to the nineteenth century” in Conservation of Painting in the Graphic Arts
123) “In the sixteenth century, BOltz wrote that with good tools a job is half completed at the start. He and other painters describe brushes, the most important tools of the painter, with reference to the materials from which they are made, method of manufacture, various types and their uses in paintings. However, some of the English documents present difficulty in interpretation.”
“There is generally no problem in knowing when reference is made to bristle brushes but it is sometimes difficult to establish exactly what raw material is indicated in connexion with soft hair brushes. English writers of the sixteenth and seventeenth venturies generally mention either miniver or caliber tails for brush-making: the tails only are used for they bear longer guard hairs than the rest of the pelt. The OED suggests that both miniver and caliber were names for the fur from some type of squirrel, yet, as any painter knows, hair from the squirrel sciurus vulgarus lacks the resilience of some other types of soft hair and brushes made from this hair offer less control in fine work. It seems unlikely that artists would use squirrel hair exclusively and this doubt is supported by evidence in a sixteenth c English manuscript: “Take a pensyll made of a calaber’s tayle or a squirrels tayle and lay on thy syse substancyally.” (fn 1 Victoria and Albert Museum MS 86.L.65, f.2) Clearly caliber and squirrel were not the same and this is confirmed by the 17th c painter henry gyles who states that caliver is a finer fur than that of English squirrel.
“Miniver is mentioned more frequently in sixteenth and early 17th c sources than caliber. For example, Gyles writing in 1664 mentions the latter whereas Norgate’s treatise written circa 1620, parts of which Gyles had copied, contains a reference only to miniver.” OED suggests (not supported by etymological grounds) that miniver might be a name for winter fur of stoat, or weasel (DC note: this is where Ward 2008 gets this idea). A standard work of reference on fur definitely links the old name miniver with ermine (fn Max Bachrach, “fur; a practical treatise’ new york: 1953, p 316). From works on painting, it seems that the name went out of use during the 17 c and in 1692 Marshall smith writes that ermine hair is best used for fitches (fn “The art of painting according to the theory and practice of the best Italian, French, and germane masters” London 1692, 74).
Richard Symond’s list written c. 1652-1654 gives other raw materials: varo (miniver), puzzola (pole cat), tasso (grey badger), setola (hog’s bristle)
Pole cat is not mentioned in native English sources, though it appears in symonds’ notebook which was written in Italy. It is mentioned by the sixteenth century german writer Bolz. Badger isn’t mentioned frequently until 18th c books.
Puzzling that there is no reference to sable, but they are mentioned by 18th c john payne
124) Tip should be set aside, not because the hair is too long as Cennino says, but per Gyles “the tip end of the tayle is not for making pensills on because the haires are crooked bending towards the poynts, but all the other haire above that joint is usefull.” The tip can be used for making brushes in which control is not required. Boltz suggests knocking out the guard hairs with a stick, but this will probably cause too great a loss of guard hairs. Gyles is the only writer to describe the method of placing groups of hair in a cylinder and tapping it repeatedly until all the hair lies level: he suggests knocking forward to the tips and then trimming the roots level, whereas the modern method is to knock the hair back to the roots and then sort the hari into groups of uniform lengths by “dragging”…. Early accounts of brushmaking do not provide a description of the method of shaping a pointed pencil, although gyles refers to the fact that a double loop should be tied round the hair loosely at first, the hair roled round and the knot tightened up, which suggests that he had an idea of the method.
Soft hair pencils inserted in quills, only those of the water fowl being really ideal bc of their resistance to water. .. boltz describes that the quills must be trimmed and soaked in lukewarm water. Gyles emphasizes the care with which this must be undertaken to avoid spoiling the shape of the brush and finally he suggests inserting a handle made of ivory, brasil wood or ebony.
“It must not be supposed that artists commonly made their own brushes, for far more writers on painting provided information on sources of supply than described in the process of brush making. Many indicated different brushes that were available and once again care is necessary in the interpretation of various englihs terms. It is clear from the written sources that the word pencil was during the 17 c applied to any relatively small brush, soft hair or bristle, flat or round. Only the largest examples, such as those used for priming or painting frames were called brushes.” (DC note so the distinction is between use of brush, not between bristle brush and nonbristle. Designates size and use not material)
fn 11) “amongst descriptions of brush making at various periods are
CENNINI
Valentin bolz von rufach: Illuminirbuch kunstlich all farben zumachen vnnd bereyten (1566) 53v-54v. British Museum MS. Harley 6376 12-16 and 87-89 (Henry gyles 17 c)
Andrew Ure: A dictionary of arts, manufactures and mines (London 1839) 633
The excellency of pen and pencil (London 1688)
John Bate the Mysteryes of Nature and Art (London 1635)
125) There was a great insistence that the hair should be firmly tied for a brush that shed hairs during painting was useless. Virtually without exception painters suggested putting a soft hair pencil in one’s mouth to test the point.
Since the 16 c relatively little has changed in the tradition of brushes and brush-making. Red sable has emerged as the most favoured soft hair and this has meant that ermine and badger are not often used. The bristle is still favored for oil because of its “flag” or divided tip (DC NOTE; the fine brushes seem to be of use in detail and miniature paitning)
More sources:
Eraclius
Anonymous bernesis
Berger Ernst
De mayerne
Notes on Trade in Artists’ Materials: markets and Commerce in Eruope to 1700 (ed Kirby, Nash, Cannon)
“Pour couleurs et autres choses prise de lui… The supply, acquisition, cost, and employment of Painters’ Materials at the Burgundian Court, c 1375-1419”, Susie Nash
-Records of the gens de finance working to keep track of the court projects and painters, dispensing valuable pigments, employed by dukes. Records kept by Amiot Arnaut, receiver general prior to 1386.
120) Perrenot Berbisey (merchant) in 1399 sells materials for Malouel for projects church”—materials include glue, soyes de porc (pig bristles) “for making brushes”, cord “for tying brushes, wax “for waxing the cord for these brushes, 100 swan quills “to make brushes”
123) Berbisey to Maloeul for “great cross, ystoire on portal to parlour and other images on portal to parlour and other things” in 1402: “fil et soye de port” (pig bristles) “to make pinceaux”—priced in a package with glay pots and large lead-lined clay pots at a cost of 71s 8 d for all three items. (note: Berbisey is only purveyor of brush materials in these documents)
[p 143—brazilwood in documents]
-161) Image: //Marcia painting//, illuminated manuscript of Boccacio’s, Julieribus Claris, Paris BNF fr 598 f. 100; Marcia uses a pinceau, made from a swan quill, such as those supplied to Malouel in 1399
162) 1399, Berbisey to Champmol pour “parlour, portal from church to small cloister, altarpieces” soyes de porc “pour faire broisses” (DC note: Berbissey is selling bristles for both pinceaux and broisses—another indication that broisse is a kind of brush, not an indication of material), wire “pour cirer les fil desdites broisses”, and the quills of swan plumes “pour faire pinceaux” (DC: again, quills assoc. with pinceaux)
163) 1402 Berbisey to Champmol and Malouel pour “great cross and other paintings on parlour portal) “fil de soye et porc” “pour faire pinceaux”
165) “The Champmol accounts also record a delivery of brush-making materials to Malouel which included pig bristles, cord and wax to make broisses (the thicker type of pig-bristle brush made with wooden handles, string and wax) and a payment for 100 swan quills, which would have made the finer sort of brush, the pinceaux into which squirrel hair or fox tail would have been fixed. These two types of brushes all well known from other documentary sources such as the Tournai guild regulations (SEE LATER IN THIS DOCUMENT FOR IDEA THAT BROISSE/PINCEAUX DISTINCTION HAS TO DO WITH GUILD REGULATIONS), painters’ inventories and the accounts of Lucas Cronach, and from various visual sources”
“The painters’ materials and equipment discussed above were supplied primarily by local traders. This was a situation created by the surge in demand in Dijon and its environs that began around 1385 and continued until about 1400.”
168) Pierre Berbisey trades in wine and salt at the fairs at Chalon-sur-Saone, is a member of Dijon government, strong merchant family. Berbisey is only called “merchant” (in contrast with especier) because he trades in bulk materials
“The Inventory of the Venetian Vendecolori Jacopo de’Benedetti: The Non-Pigment Materials”, Roland Krischel
253) Benedetti dies in 1594, widow wants dowry back so his inventory is taken for liquidation
259) “As Jo Kirby has pointed out, the brushes listed in the Benedetti inventory are ‘particularly interesting as there is little information on brushes in this period and what exists is rather widely dispersed’ (fn 85: personal comm.). For most of the entries a weight is given that might indicate that the brushes were sold without sticks. By far the biggest quantities concern unprepared pigs’ hair (sede da peneli brute) but there are also ready-made pigs’ hair brushes of medium size (peneli di sede mezani). We find big brushes (peneli grosi), unspecified brushes of medium size (peneli mezani), brushes in goose quills (in pena de occha), brushes for painting house marks on trading goods (peneli da march) and brushes for miniature painting (peneli da miniar—dc note cognate in miniver/miniar?). Some sorts are sold by number and not by weight: there are brushes in the form of blaeds (peneli in lama) for decorative work and some particularly big and wide brushes more suitable for painting walls—the ‘masoche’, ‘peneli de mazo’ and ‘da mezo mazo”. This wide choice reminds us that Venetian brushes had a far-reaching reputation. Aremenini praised them (fn 86: Armenini, G.B. (1587) De’ very precetti della pittura… Ravenna (reprint, Hildescheim and New York: G. Olms, 1971 p 103), Frederico II Gonzaga bought them for Giulio Romano and his assistance between 1528 and 1539, Tintoretto bought them for the Spanish court in 1577 (fn 87: Ferrari D (ed) 1992 Giulio Romano: repertorio di fonti documentarie vol 1 pp 275, 278, 281). Amidst the brushes—between the smalles (da miniar) and the biggest (masoche) the inventory mentions “ortigini, post probably feathers of the quail (ortigia) bound to brushes of different size and price serving both artists and artisans (fn 89: Brachert (2001) Lexikon historischer Maltechniken. Quellen- Handwerk- Technologie- Alchemie, Munich, p 159 “malerfeder”).
265) Brushes in Benedetti inventory
“Administrator of Painting: the Purchase and Distribution Book of Wolf Pronner (1586-1590) as a Source for the History of Painting Materials”, Ursula Haller
325) Munich court of Duke William V of Bavaria has Wolf Pronner as the “administrator of painting” who keeps track of artists materials purchased and distributed to artists working at Munich court between 1586-1590. Pronner has to supervise paintings to give weekly progress reports to the Duke, and to keep track of the materials to ensure that the artists don’t use them for separate, side commission pieces.
327) Pronner notes ten court painters supported by “their apprentices, six qualified master painters and gilders from Munich who were employed per week or per day, and several color grinders.”
329) “Hans Tegler is head color grinder who receives materials… The color grinders were not only employed to supply the court painters with colors ready for use but also to prepare supports and grounds. The number and employment of these color grinders are of interest, as it suggests another move away from the self-sufficient artists’ workshop towards the use of finished or semi-finished products.” (DC note: this court model, in which the artists are held in suspicion of diverting court-purchased materials, may or may not be applicable to BNF author)
330) Pronner’s main supplier is local merchant named Caspar Hartschmidt, who is a purveyor of writing as well as painting materials to the court. “Whether Hartschmidt traded only in artists’ materials or whether he sold this sort of material as part of his product range (which is more probable) cannot currently be determined, but since we know there were specialized traders in artists’ materials at the time in important artistic centers such as venice or Amsterdam, it is not beond the bounds of probability that he was a specialist supplier.” (DC note: Hartschmidt did not supply brush making materials per these tables.) “It is also likely that Pronner’s local suppliers bought various products from the fairs, besides purchasing them directly from their place of processing.” (perhaps this is where brush materials come from?)
332) Capsar Schecks is listed as ‘artist’ brush-maker (pinselmacher) from Augsburg who supplies “artsist’ brushes (maler penzel) of different size shape and quality, “very small artists’ brushes (gar kleine pensel), artists’ brushes of squirrel fur (vech pensel), polecat, brushes in metal tubes (pensel in plechin rorlin), and “older brushes in quills” (elter in kiln). Schecks also supplies English lead-tin yellow, shell gold and silver.
Shcecks trades in lead white and walnut oil while both a “gold-beater” and a brush maker.
“Conerning the deliveries of the artists’ brush-maker, two details are of interest. First, it seems to be one of the earliest pieces of evidence of the profession of the Pinselmacher (as a producer of fine artists’ brushes) as distinct from the burstenbinder (brush maker). (DC NOTE: SEE KIDDER LATER IN THIS DOCUMENT). Second, the supply of “plechin pensel” or “pensel in plechen rorlin” (pencils in small metal tubes) is very early evidence of metal ferrules. Pronner separated them clearly from the elter or “older” brushes in quills. (DC NOTE: this is much earlier than the other sources note—interesting).
“trade in Painters’ Materials in Sixteenth-Century London” Jo Kirby
342) London’s principal trading partner is Antwerp until late 1560s, trade in a variety of goods including food, spices, soap, animal pelts, wood from the Baltic, manufactured items such as balances. Antwerp’s decline in 1568 forces British merchants to begin trading with the rest of Mediterranean countries once more.
“Some Aspects of the materials used by seventeenth century cabinet painters in Antwerp”. Ria Fabri
372) Cabinet painters needed borstels (bristle brushes) and pinseelen (fine hair paint brushes. Bristle brushes appear to have been rougher and thicker in structure and were used, for instance, for grounding the surfaces. A distinction was made between middelbaere, small penneborstels, and regular brushes. The price varied betwee 5 and 19 pence per dozen and the art dealers usually bought 100-200 dozen brushes at a time (fn 56: sales slip of Peter Derinstrate—DC NOTE—THERE MUST BE BRUSHMAKERS DOING THIS FULL TIME IF THERE ARE BRUSHES BOUGHT IN THIS QUANTITY).
“Paint brushes needed for the finer work were available in several varieties. Not only did the sizes differ, but more importantly, their composition also varied. In 1640 and from 1660 to 1670, for instance, fine paint brushes fashioned out of the quils from goose, duck or swan feathers were traded, as well as paint brushes made of hogs’ bristles or even those from goose. Connoisseurs also distinguished between eyndekens (literally and mysteriously “little ducks”) and average paint brushes, as well as between big and schonen or good quality paint brushes. Their prices varied between 1 and 4 pence a dozen and they too were sold in batches of 17-24 dozen as is evident from the bills of Forchondt and Musson (fn year 1688).
“As far as the archives show, these coarse brushes and fine hair paint brushes were of local manufacture and were not imported from abroad. On the other hand, occacionally an art dealer forwarded brushes and paint brushes to a customer abroad as occurred in 1670 when Guiliam Forchondt sent a batch to one of his sons who was stationed in Vienna. Can one assume that Antwerp paint brushes were of a better quality, or were they just better value than the Viennese brushes?”
Northern Renaissance Art, Susie Nash, Oxford (2008)
CHAPTER 13: WORKSPACE AND EQUIPMENT
157) “Their studio is completely full of panels/ Some painted, some to be painted, and many noble tools./ There are charcoals, crayons, pens, fine brushes/ Bristle brushes, piles of shells… “ –Jean Lemaire de Belges, La Couronne Margaritique (1504-5)
162) “Just as important to an artist’s practice as the nature of his working space was the equipment he used. Indeed tools, as much if not more than materials, were often the defining feature of a craft, and the means by which guild membership was often dictated. In Ghent, for example, scribes who worked with a brush as well as a pen had to join the painters’ guild and pay a part fee (fn: Reynolds, “Illuminators and the Painters’ Guilds” in Kren and McKendrick Illuminating the Renaissance);… in Antwerp in 1532 when the painters claimed that a maker of clothes brushes and pen holders should pay fees to their guild, he countered in a winning argument that although he did paint his wares, he did not use a brush to do so and therefore he did not need to belong to the painters’ craft (Van der Stock, Printing Images in Antwerp, doc. 3, 305-6). “
165) “The item of equipment singled out most frequently in guild regulations and disputes as the identifying tool of the painters’ craft was, unsurprisingly, the brush; this is the first and only tool specified in the long list of items—mainly materials, and mostly pigments—listed as the preserve of the properly trained painter in the Tournai regulations of 1480 (Stechow, Sources and Documents, 24-5). The use (or not) of the brush was also, as we have seen, a key argument marshaled in disputes as to who should pay fees to the painters’ guild by scribes, textile printers and print-makers in Ghent, Bruges, and Antwerp.
“The quality of your brushes was vital, and and they could be bought ready=made: Durer records that in Antwerp in 1521 he bought ’13 bristle brushes for 6 stivers, and 6 bristle brushes for 3 stivers, and then another 3 stivers for another 3 bristle brushes’ (fn 33: Conway, literary Remains, 122. “The reference to porpoise hair brushes” presumably a translation error. DC NOTE—THIS MAY REFER TO SEAL HAIR). However, many artists would have made them themselves, perhaps preferring to do so; it must have been an important skill apprentices had to acquire. There were two types of brushes used by painters, one made with pig or hog bristles (durer was buying this type in Antwerp), the other with fine hairs from squirrel or fox tails. They are carefully distinguished in the documentary sources—Jean Lemaire de Belge’s poem describes pinceaux (fine or small brushes) and brosses à tas (bristle brushes; Lucas Cranach’s accounts refer to porpensel (bristle) and harbensel (hair brushes); Jan van der Stockt’s inventory lists pinselen (fine brushes) and borstelen (bristle) and the Tournai painters’ regulations of 1480 distinguish between pinceaux and brosses (DC LOOK UP THESE REGULATIONS). These two types of brushes were also constructed differently, as is made clear in the payments for supplies to Malouel at the Chartreuse de Champmol where, in 1399, he received pig bristles, wax, and string to make brosses and 100 swans’ quills to make pinceaux. The two types are depicted sitting next to each other on st luke’s table
166) “Painters must have owned literally hundreds of brushes: Jean Lemaire in La Plainte du Désiré (1503-4) makes his artist exclaim, peraps with some exaggeration, “I have thousands of pinceaux and brosses and tools.” That Durer bought 22 fairly casually in Antwerp, and that Malouel received equipment to make 100 of the fine sort alone, indicate just how many a busy painter’s shop would need: they must have had a limited working life, but it was also because a wide range of different sizes and shapes were needed: xrays of paintings by Lucas Cranach have revealed that he used a large blunt-bristle brush around 30 mm wide for painting the imprimatura (priming layer), and a range of smaller sizes of bristle brush varying between 5-15 mm wide for blocking in areas of color and their subsequent modeling (Heyndenreich, Painting Materials, 147-8). For the finer details, and areas like the face, the pinselen, again in a range of sizes, would be used.”
(DC NOTES: THE DIFFERENTIATION OF IMPLEMENTS MAY HAVE SOMETHING TO DO WITH THE INCREASINGLY CONCRETE SPECIALIZATION OF GUILDS AND PROFESSIONS)
CHAPTER 14: THE WORKFORCE
(notes on labor aiding the painter)
179) Lucas Cranach in Wittenberg has as many as 15 assistants in 1513 (Heydenreich painting materials p. 255-6).
In Amiens, bruges, and Brussels and ulm, painters can only have one apprentice at a time; munich and Krakow two at a time; in paris (after 1391), Lyon, Rouen, and Tournai there is no restriction on number of apprentices. Most apprentices are young and are not the main source of assistance for the artists.
205) Image of St Luke drawing the Virgin (1480), Hugo van der Goes
“on the windowshil are two pinceaux, with a bird wing and a knife on the floor suggesting he just finished making these brushes
Tittler, Robert. Portraits, Painters, and Publics in Provincial England 1540-1640. Oxford University Press, 2013.
CHAPTER 5: PAINTERS’ RESOURCES: MATERIAL AND CULTURAL
87) Artists working furher afield from London had to make do with more limited range of pigments, brushes, canvasses, etc.
90) “Brushes were also critical tools to which access and quality may well have varied with locale. Broad and coarse brushes of pig bristles were employed to apply grounds and primers to the raw and/or rough surfaces and for painting backgrounds and other large, flat surface areas (John Chenevix Tench, ‘John Abbot’s manual of Limming”, Association for studies in the conservation of historic buildings, transactions, 1 (1986), 21). Other brushes had to span a broad range of fineness and quality. Brushes of a meaner sort could be and undoubtedly were made locally, even by painters themselves. But the finer quality of brushes were traditionally imported from abroad. In places like Augsburg (DC NOTE: PRONNER’S BRUSHMAKER WAS FROM AUGSBURG) and Antwerp the craft became to specialized by the latter decades of the sixteenth century as to allow for distinctions to be made between those who made the coarser, bristle brushes and the finer “pencil” brushes.
“When brush-making became a dedicated occupation in England, it also became a prime candidate for royal patents of monopoly. Such patents became sources of parliamentary concern in 1621 and 1624, but some of them had been hotly opposed even in Elizabeth’s reigh. In 1601 the Wueen bowed to those pressures and removed monopolies on a number of items including brushes (Thirsk, Economic policy and projects: the development of a consumer society in early modern England, oxford 1978, 98 and 182). By the 1620s their manufacture seems to have become a full-time occupation for at least a small number of London craftsmen, perhaps an offshoot of the painter’s trade itself. A “Mr Smyth, brushmaker” and member of the Painter-Stainer’s Company of London was well enough established in his craft to take on Thomas Eggllfeyld as his apprentice in August of 1630.
“However, notwithstanding these milestones in the history of English brushmaking, many painters continued to make their own brushes: both the coarser bristle brushes and the finer pencils made with the hairs of squirrel, sable, or fitch and fixed in the quill of a duck, goose, or other large bird. Only such finer brushes permitted the more delicate and refined work we see in the more subtly blended flesh tones or in the intricate workings of lace collars which came into fashion in the late sixteenth and early seventheenth centuries. They therefore became essential for the most skillful painters, who also relied on them both to draw thin and delicate outlines and to build up the subtly toned contours of flesh, fabric, and shadow that characterized their work…
FROM BNF
Brushes
When the color has dried inside them and you want to clean them soak them in some aspic oil and they will turn immediately soft again as before, then you will finish to clean them in some nut oil. Nut oilis not as appropriate to soften them as the aspic one which is clear like water and penetrates and is not as thick as the nut oil. Brush handles are made by the quirky ones of porcupine hairs, by some others with fine branches of Turkish wood with which they also make small sticks to rest their hand when they are painting left-middle Enamel azur must not be ground even with some water for it dies and loses all its color. Because however it cannot be used if it is big, grind it not with some water but with some oil and grind it roughly and so it will not die left-middle Always choose the thinnest one
left-bottom To work properly on small scale you need some very fine brushes with a strong point. And because the hair taken from a squirrel’s tale is [mollesin], the most quirky ones use the of oldest rats’ hair and even of dormouses if they can find some and put two or three in the middle of a brush. These brushes draw a straight line like a quill and all the other hairs stick to them. The hair of a stone marten or of a weasel and small animals used to make some musk are even better for just one hair is necessary in a brush
059r http://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/btv1b9059316c/f123.item Lacquer and white lead and ceruse are easy to work with some oil, but every kind of azure is difficult. And to make a beautiful azure, one has to lay it not with big strokes of the brush but with fine strokes of the end. (DIRECTIONS ON WHAT PART OF THE BRUSH TO USE)
P 60r_1
First whitening of your painting
Apply two or three chalk layers mixed with glue on your painting not with a painting brush but with a brush as if you would like to rub off and leave it dry. And do it again two or three times then with a knife, even the last layer then apply a handful of glue on which you will be able to stamp and then paint. But make sure that your first white layer is not too thick for it would break easily. Flemish painters have such paintings made by dozen.
P60v_4
Flemish works
They oil paint their work with the brush point following the miniaturists’ method and grind their colors very finely, avoid any dust and often clean the hair bits off their brush for when they stick on the painting, they would not be able to work precisely what they are really interested in. By doing so their work is very finished even if it is a small work which requires more diligence for it is closer. They usually complete the forehead, then the eyes, then the nose, finally the mouth and the rest. But they do not proceed like some others who apply two or three different flesh tones, the first yellowish, then darker because the colors always mingle and then die. They just carefully make their underlayer.
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