170 PAINTING MATERIALS
it was much used by scribes and illuminators of books; in many of these it is we
preserved but in others it has eaten into the parchment so that parts painted wit
it drop out and leave gaps in the page. Laurie states (The Pigments and Medium
of the Old Masters, p. 100) that real crystalline verdigris is not found on painting
or manuscripts until the beginning of the XV century but from that time its us
continued up to the XIX century. It is now seldom listed by colormen.
A pigment allied with it is transparent copper green. Laurie, in several of hi
published works (particularly in The Pigments and Mediums of the Old Master.
pp. 35-39 and 99-103) has described a peculiar grass-green paint which frequentl
is found on illuminated manuscripts that date from the VIII through the XF
century. When examined microscopically, it exhibits no discrete crystallin
particles of verdigris or other copper salt, yet it tests positively for copper. It i
green-stained, pellicular paint. The resinous character of the medium is quit
evident from its fracture and brittleness. In dilute hydrochloric acid the color i
discharged and it is soluble enough to test for copper. The color is destroyed b
dilute alkali and by heat. Laurie believes that this color was produced by com
bining copper acetate or verdigris with some balsam like Venice turpentine. It i
well known that copper and copper salts react readily with resin solutions to forr
copper resinates, and these solutions become green-stained. Laurie suggests (p£
dt.y p. 37) that this transparent copper green could have been applied by dilutio
with turpentine or it could have been dried, ground to a powder, and mixed wit
gum, or with white of egg, or even emulsified with egg. He says there appear to b
no early recipes for the preparation of this green, and it is first mentioned, so fa
as he knows, by De Mayerne (MS. Sloaney 1052) in the XVII century. Further (j
164), just as it disappeared from illuminated manuscripts in the late XV centurj
it began to appear in the * oil' paintings of the Van Eycks and their followers, an
its use continued until about the middle XVI century in Germany and norther
Italy. He sometimes terms it * Van Eyck green * (see p. 128) because it is foun
in so many of the paintings of those masters. The color obtained by the direc
action of copper salts on pure balsams is blue-green, and Laurie suggests that th
warmer hues of the copper green were made by admixture with organic yello1
pigment like yellow lake, saffron, or gamboge (see p. 101). In many paintings th:
color appears to be unaltered and in much its original condition—the result, part
ally, of the protective influence of the resinous medium.
Verditer (see Blue Verditer).
Vermilion (cinnabar, English vermilion, Chinese vermilion) is red mercur:
sulphide (HgS). It is found in nature as the mineral, cinnabar, which is tt
principal ore of the metal, mercury. Although the crushed and ground ore serve
directly as a pigment for centuries, yet in very early times men learned how to r<
combine the elements, mercury and sulphur, to form artificial cinnabar or vermi
ion. Cinnabar was known by the Greeks and Romans, and was mentioned t
Pliny, who called it 'minium* (see Bailey, II, 119-127). The name, minium, lat<