Название: A History of Inventions, Discoveries, and Origins (Vol. 1&2)
Автор: Johann Beckmann
Издательство: Bookwire
Жанр: Документальная литература
isbn: 4064066399894
isbn:
a Nicholson’s Journal, July 1800, p. 179.
b Philosophical Magazine, 1805.
c Phil. Trans. 1831, p. 147.
29 Lib. xxxiii. cap. 6.
30 Vit. lib. vii. c. 8.
31 In Origin. lib. xvi. c. 18.
32 De Aurilegio, præcipue in Rheno. Argent. 1776.
33 Historia naturale e morale delle Indie. Venetia, 1596.
34 The same account as that given by Acosta may be seen in Garcilasso de la Vega, Commentarios reales; Lisboa 1609, p. 225; in Rycaut’s English translation, London 1688, fol. i. p. 347; and in De Laet, Novus Orbis, Lugd. Bat. 1633, fol. p. 447.
35 Vol. i. p. 414.
36 Hakluyt’s Collection of Voyages. London, 1600, fol. vol. iii. p. 466.
37 See La France littéraire. Paris, 1769, 2 vols. 8vo, vol. ii. p. 410.
COLD OR DRY GILDING.
Dry gilding, as it is called by some workmen, is a light method of gilding, by steeping linen rags in a solution of gold, then burning them; and with a piece of cloth dipped in salt water, rubbing the ashes over silver intended to be gilt. This method requires neither much labour nor much gold, and may be employed with advantage for carved work and ornaments. It is however not durable.
I am of opinion that this manner of gilding is a German invention, and that foreigners, at least the English, were first made acquainted with it about the end of the last century; for Robert Southwell describes it in the Philosophical Transactions for the year 1698, and says that it was known to very few goldsmiths in Germany.
GOLD VARNISH.
As mankind could not have everything that they wished for of gold, they were contented with incrusting many articles with this precious metal. For that purpose the gold was beat into plates, with which the walls of apartments, dishes, and other vessels were covered. In early ages these plates were thick, so that gilding in this manner was very expensive38; but in process of time the expense was much lessened, because the art was discovered of making these gold plates thinner, and of laying them on with a size. Articles however ornamented in this manner were still costly, and the valuable metal was always lost. Yellow golden colours of all kinds were then tried; but these did not fully produce the required effect, as they wanted that splendour peculiar to metals, and appeared always languid and dull. It was not till modern times that artists conceived the idea of overlaying with silver, or some cheaper white metal, such things as they wished to have the appearance of gold, and then daubing them over with a yellow transparent varnish, in order to give to the white metal the colour of gold, and to the colour the splendour of metal. “When we cover our houses with gold,” says Seneca, “do we not show that we delight in deception? for we know that coarse wood is concealed under that gold39.”
This ingenious process, which at present is employed all over Europe in gilding wooden frames, coaches, and various articles, and which was formerly used in the preparation of the now old-fashioned leather tapestry, was invented towards the end of the 17th century. Anderson, in his Historical and chronological deduction of the Origin of Commerce, says that it was introduced into England by one Evelyn in the year 1633; and quotes, in support of this assertion, The Present State of England, printed in 1683.
This invention, however, does not belong to the English, but to the Italians, and properly to the Sicilians. Antonino Cento, an artist of Palermo, found out the gold varnish, and in the year 1680 published there an account of the method of preparing it. That work I have never seen; but I found this information in a book printed at Palermo in 1704, and entitled The Inventions of the Sicilians40. Among the few important things contained in this book, the greater part of which is compiled from old Latin writers, there is, in the additions, a receipt how to prepare the gold varnish (vernice d’oro). The whole account I shall transcribe, as the authors of the French Journal of Agriculture, Commerce, and the Arts, thought it worth their trouble to make it known in that work in 1778.
“Take shell-lac, and having freed it from the filth and bits of wood with which it is mixed, put it into a small linen bag, and wash it in pure water, till the water no longer becomes red; then take it from the bag and suffer it to dry. When it is perfectly dry, pound it very fine; because the finer it is pounded the more readily will it dissolve. Then take four parts of spirit of СКАЧАТЬ