SAMPLE PAGE © BREPOLS PUBLISHERS 2016

Colour
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The Art & Science of
Illuminated Manuscripts
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Edited by
Stella Panayotova
with the assistance of
Deirdre Jackson & Paola Ricciardi
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This catalogue is published in memory of Melvin Seiden
and in honour of
James H. Marrow and Emily Rose Marrow
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To accompany the exhibition
Colour at the Fitzwilliam Museum
30 July to 30 December 2016
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This exhibition is supported by the
Fitzwilliam Museum’s Bicentenary Business Partners:
TTP Group plc
ACE Cultural Tours
Hewitsons LLP
Marshall of Cambridge
Rheebridge Ltd
Sotheby’s
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Contents
Director’s Preface
Acknowledgements
section 1 Colour in Illuminated Manuscripts Stella Panayotova
section 2 The Illuminators’ Palette
Paola Ricciardi and Kristine Rose Beers
section 3 The Trade in Colours
Spike Bucklow
section 4 The Image of the Illuminator
Richard Gameson
section 5Pigment Recipes and Model Books: Nancy K.Turner and Doris Oltrogge
Mechanisms for Knowledge
Transmission and the Training of
Manuscript Illuminators
section 6 Alchemy and Colour
Spike Bucklow
section 7 Masters’ Secrets
Stella Panayotova and Paola Ricciardi
section 8 From Vandalism to Reconstruction Stella Panayotova with contributions by
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Marie D’Autume, Edward Cheese,
Rebecca Honold, Paola Ricciardi
and Carola-Bibiane Schönlieb
9 Painting with Gold and Silver
Nigel Morgan
section 10 Modelling in Manuscript Painting Nigel Morgan
c.1050 – c.1500
section 11 Grisaille in Manuscript Painting Nigel Morgan and Elizabeth J. Moodey
section 12 ‘Incarnation’ Illuminated: Nancy Turner
Painting the Flesh in Medieval
and Renaissance Manuscripts
section 13 Colour Theory, Optics and Stella Panayotova
Manuscript Illumination
section 14 Colour and Meaning
Deirdre Jackson
appendix Analytical Methods and Equipment Paola Ricciardi
Glossary of terms
Index of works of art cited
Bibliography
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Full page image to come
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Fitzwilliam Museum.
St Christopher.
MS 49, fol. 8v (detail)
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director ’ s preface
Director’s Preface
Tim Knox
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OLOUR displays the Fitzwilliam M useum’ s superb illuminated manuscripts,
showcasing the richness and diversity of the collections, the advanced research that
they support and inspire, and the generosity of private benefactors and public institutions
over the last two centuries.
An exhibition of medieval and Renaissance manuscripts is a most fitting celebration
of the Museum’s bicentenary. The Fitzwilliam preserves the finest and largest museum
collection of illuminated manuscripts in existence. Manuscripts were at the heart of the
Founder’s collection with which the Museum was established in 1816. Richard, VII Viscount
Fitzwilliam of Merrion (1745-1816), bequeathed to Cambridge University, his alma mater,
144 paintings and a magnificent library ‘for the increase of learning’. The library contained
10,000 fine printed books, over 500 albums of prints including works by Rembrandt, an
outstanding collection of music with autograph scores by Handel and Purcell, and 130
illuminated manuscripts. Superb examples of late medieval and Renaissance illumination,
they reveal the Founder’s interest in manuscripts as works of art.
Viscount Fitzwilliam belonged to the first generation of collectors who recognised illuminated manuscripts as ‘the monuments of a lost art.’ The French Revolution, the Napoleonic wars and the secularization of religious houses placed an unprecedented number of
manuscripts on the art market, dispersing venerable collections and resulting in the formation of new ones. The hundreds of images sheltered between the covers of volumes that
had been treasured in princely and religious libraries for centuries constitute the largest
and best preserved repositories of medieval and Renaissance painting. With the majority of
panel and wall paintings destroyed by war, greed, puritanical zeal, time and the elements,
illuminated manuscripts are the richest resource for the study of colour in European culture
between the sixth and the sixteenth century – the main focus of this exhibition. Many of
the Founder’s manuscripts are included in COLOUR and some go on public display for
the first time. They can only be seen at the Museum due to a clause in Viscount Fitzwilliam’s bequest which prevents them from leaving the building – a stipulation revealing the
anxieties of a collector who had assembled his treasures in the aftermath of the French
Revolution.
In his 1895 catalogue of the manuscripts – the first academic publication on any part
of the Museum’s collections – the then Director, eminent scholar and famous ghost story
writer Montague Rhodes James (1862-1936) appealed to potential benefactors to think of
the Fitzwilliam as a place where their ‘manuscripts would be choicely valued, religiously
preserved, and minutely investigated.’ The response was overwhelming. Among the bequests
and donations which streamed into the Museum over the next two decades was one of
the largest and finest private collections of medieval manuscripts and objects. In 1904,
the astronomer and inventor Frank McClean, known in the sale rooms as ‘Mr Money’,
bequeathed over 200 volumes and some 130 illuminated fragments. The latter had been
excised from their original volumes by zealous dealers and collectors in the decades around
1800, reflecting and nurturing the new passion for the art of illumination. The 1912 bequest
of Charles Brinsley Marlay’s vast and eclectic collection included one of the largest groups
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of illuminated fragments ever amassed – well over 250. These bequests quadrupled the
Museum’s collection, supplementing the Founder’s predominantly French, Italian, Flemish
and Dutch material with superb examples of English, German and Spanish illumination.
Many of McClean and Marlay’s treasures are displayed in COLOUR, celebrating their
wide-ranging tastes.
The collection grew further under James’ successor, Sydney Cockerell (1867-1962), the
longest ruling and most acquisitive Fitzwilliam Director to date. His extraordinary vision,
energy, power of persuasion, and connections with prominent artists, collectors and industrialists doubled the size of the original building and trebled the collections. Among the
numerous masterpieces that he brought to his ‘palace’ were illuminated manuscripts, the
focus of Cockerell’s own expertise. He hunted them down in private collections, fought
over them in the sale rooms, and launched unprecedented campaigns to acquire them for
‘his Museum’. Some of his most spectacular acquisitions are presented on the following
pages.
Gifts and bequests of illuminated manuscripts continued to arrive after Cockerell’s retirement, thanks to his relentless cultivation of prospective donors. His scholarship and passion
have also inspired more recent acquisitions, notably the Macclesfield Psalter purchased in
2005 with support from the National Heritage Memorial Fund, the Art Fund, the Friends
of the National Libraries, the Friends of the Fitzwilliam Museum and the public. This
exhibition marks our gratitude to the private benefactors, trusts, foundations, grant-giving
bodies and members of the public whose generosity has created one of the finest collections of illuminated manuscripts over the last 200 years.
COLOUR also celebrates the world-class expertise of the Fitzwilliam’s curators and conservators. By treasuring, investigating, preserving and sharing the manuscripts, they honour
the legacy of Viscount Fitzwilliam, M.R. James and Sydney Cockerell. Two projects led by
the exhibition curator Dr Stella Panayotova, Keeper of Manuscripts and Printed Books,
underpin COLOUR’s research platform. The Cambridge Illuminations project is publishing
the medieval and Renaissance illuminated manuscripts at the Fitzwilliam Museum and the
Cambridge Colleges in a multi-volume series. The MINIARE project represents a new and
rapidly developing field of research – the identification of artists’ materials and techniques
in illuminated manuscripts through advanced, non-invasive scientific analyses. It informs
the conservation treatment of invaluable, but fragile manuscripts and ensures their preservation for posterity.
COLOUR integrates MINIARE’s discoveries with the research of the Cambridge Illuminations project. It celebrates the innovative partnerships between numerous disciplines in
the arts, humanities and sciences. Leading experts in Cambridge, across the UK and overseas
are collaborating with the Fitzwilliam’s curators, researchers and conservators to discover
the secrets of medieval and Renaissance illuminators.
Visitors and readers of COLOUR are invited to examine in detail the creative process,
exquisite beauty, patronage and historic significance of the manuscripts. The themes range
from the painting materials and techniques of illuminated manuscripts to the multi-layered
meaning of their images, from alchemical recipes to artists’ manuals, from vandalism and
forgeries to conservation and digital reconstruction, and from medieval optics to cuttingedge scientific analyses.
Together with the exhibition and its catalogue, we are launching a new digital research and
teaching resource, ILLUMINATED: Manuscripts in the Making. It allows one to leaf through
multiple paintings within the manuscripts, overlay images of the same painting captured
with advanced imaging methods, discover the pigments identified in the miniatures, and
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explore the relationships between the individuals involved in the manuscripts’ production
and early use.
The Fitzwilliam Museum has a strong tradition of manuscript exhibitions, starting with
the one that marked its 150th anniversary in 1966. In 2005, the Cambridge Illuminations welcomed an unprecedented number of visitors, becoming the Museum’s first exhibition to be
extended by popular demand, while its catalogue sold out twice in four months. We invite
visitors to join us in celebrating our bicentenary with COLOUR.
Temporary exhibitions aside, we hope to build a new gallery for the permanent display
of illuminated manuscripts. In 1917, Sydney Cockerell wrote to Henry Yates Thompson,
the foremost manuscript collector of the time: ‘I regard the Fitzwilliam Museum as an ideal
destination for such a collection as yours – by reason of its being already recognised as a
place offering singular advantages to students of manuscripts, because bequests to it are free
of legacy duty, and because of the lucky chance that I can undertake for myself and my
successors to build a handsome and suitable room for its permanent exhibition in cleaner
air than that of London.’ In 2016, a hundred years later, we are currently working on plans
for the refurbishment and expansion of the Fitzwilliam Museum: would it not be fitting to
honour Cockerell’s promise?
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Fitzwilliam Museum MS 1-2005, fol. 15r (detail)
Fitzwilliam Museum
MS 1-2005, fol. 15r
(detail)
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Acknowledgements
W
hile in the making , this
exhibition catalogue grew very similar to the subject of
its study – the making of illuminated manuscripts. It is the collaborative venture of
scholars who shared their wide-ranging expertise across disciplines and continents. One of
the most challenging aspects of this project – the integration of concepts and methodologies
between the arts, humanities and sciences – turned out to be one of the most fulfilling
experiences. I am deeply grateful to all of my co-authors for their intellectual curiosity and
generosity.
Two of them deserve a special mention – Deirdre Jackson and Paola Ricciardi, Research
Associates on the Cambridge Illuminations and MINIARE projects. Their involvement in
all aspects of COLOUR is far greater than the presence of their names throughout the
catalogue might suggest. Paola’s technical analyses underpin all discussions of illuminators’
materials and techniques. Deirdre sourced all images from external institutions. Both worked
extensively on the design and content of a new digital research and teaching resource
launched simultaneously with the exhibition, ILLUMINATED: Manuscripts in the Making.
They helped me synthesize our research into sets of material tailored to the needs of
different audiences, from school groups to the national press. I owe a great deal to their
expertise, hard work, and good cheer, and consider them my co-curators of COLOUR.
Two other colleagues in the Department of Manuscripts and Printed Books were indispensable for the completion of the display, the Technician John Lancaster and the Conservator Edward Cheese. John and I started planning the galleries layout three years ago, but
the final design is his own achievement. John accommodated numerous changes and solved
serious issues with typical flexibility and resourcefulness. His ‘Let’s see what I can do’ makes
him the Technician every exhibition curator dreams of. For the physical completion of the
layout and the installation, we received vital support from Mella Shaw and David Evans in
the Museum’s small, but talented and hard-working exhibition team. John also perfected
the design of his bespoke cradles – works of art in their own right – and was ably assisted
in their making by Erika Lewis.
Edward Cheese ensured that the conservation of all manuscripts was completed on time
for the installation. He was assisted in the last five, decisive months by Gwendoline Lemée.
Before Edward’s arrival at the Museum in January 2015, several conservators had made
important contributions to the preparation of exhibits. I am grateful to Kristine Rose Beers
for her elegant treatment of the two Islamic manuscripts presented in COLOUR, and
to her intern, Sibel Ergener, for remounting numerous cuttings and consolidating their
pigments. Rebecca Honold surveyed all volumes and conserved most of them. Edward
Cheese undertook the most challenging treatments, including the complete rebinding of
COLOUR’s opening exhibit. This imposing Parisian manuscript of 1414, compromised by
a broken, common eighteenth-century binding, is now protected in a new, robust and flexible structure. While disbound, it revealed previously undetected aspects of the parchment
preparation, which Edward is harnessing in an on-line training tool for conservators. It also
benefited from Paola’s detailed analyses which uncovered instructions to the artists. Edward
Cheese combines outstanding craftsmanship with expert knowledge of historic binding
structures and sound approach to conservation, based on a meticulous assessment of the
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acknowledgements
condition and use of each item. This is the combination of conservation skills and ethics
required for collections that are used extensively for research, teaching and public display.
We were fortunate to have two brilliant young scientists, Giulia Bertolotti and Lucía
Pereira-Pardo, as successive Schindler/MINIARE Fellows in 2014/15 and 2015/16. They
made significant contributions to the technical analyses. Another young scholar, Chiara
Martelli, joined our team as an Erasmus Student Trainée between May and August 2016,
and helped with the final preparations for COLOUR.
©
I owe several personal tokens of gratitude, first of all to the private benefactor who made
this catalogue and the research for it possible, and whose generosity is matched only by her
modesty. For well over a decade, the annual donation from Prof. James Marrow and Dr
Emily Rose Marrow has been a life line for the Department of Manuscripts and Printed
Books. It supports a range of initiatives, from research and publications to the purchase of
a microscope for our technical analysis and the acquisition of miniatures, some displayed
here for the first time.
Dr Richard Alway, Prof. James Carley, Prof. Ann Hutchinson, and Prof. John Magee
invited me to spend three months at the beginning of 2013 at the Pontifical Institute
of Mediaeval Studies and the Centre for Medieval Studies, University of Toronto. John
Fraser’s hospitality made Massey College a home away from home. The only reprieve
from Cambridge duties in the years leading up to COLOUR, this was a most fruitful and
enjoyable time for reading and writing.
I am very grateful to Edward Cheese, Deirdre Jackson and Suzanne Reynolds for their
judicious reading of my essays. Since Suzanne joined the Department of Manuscripts and
Printed Books as its first Assistant Keeper in November 2014, the pace of work on COLOUR
accelerated without compromising our daily responsibilities for scholars, students, colleagues
and the public. While sharing regular duties with me, Suzanne is also undertaking new
research on our fine printed books. I am indebted to the private Trust who secured threeyear funding for the creation of this long-needed post and to Tim Knox, Lucilla Burn and
Kate Carreno for their moral and practical support.
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While COLOUR marks the Fitzwilliam’s bicentenary with a display predominantly of its
own collections, the full story could not have been told without carefully selected loans. I
am very grateful to colleagues in Cambridge, Cologne, Göttingen, London, Oxford, Paris
and Prague, who lent some of their most precious manuscripts. The Cambridge University
Herbarium, the Sedgwick Museum of Earth Sciences, the Hamilton Kerr Institute, L.
Cornelissen & Son, Julie Dawson, Trevor Emmett, Patricia Lovett, Cheryl Porter, Penny
Price and Kristine Rose Beers offered samples of minerals and plants used for pigments.
The kindness and generosity of all our lenders are among the most special birthday gifts for
the Fitzwilliam.
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A complex exhibition like this involves work on many fronts. COLOUR benefited from
the expertise of colleagues across the Museum: Linda Brooklyn, Spike Bucklow, Ayshea
Carter, Diana Caulfield, Tao-Tao Chang, Robert Dennes, Georgina Doji, Tracy Harding,
Lois Hargrave, Jacqueline Hey, Liz Hide, Michael Jones, Amanda Lightstone, Anna LloydGriffiths, Andrew Norman, David Packer, Nicholas Robinson, David Scruton, Rachel
Sinfield, Miranda Stearn, Daryl Tappin, Lucy Theobald, Kerry Wallis and Liz Woods.
Colleagues and friends in other institutions offered expert advice and support:
Maurizio Aceto, Martin Allen, Azzurra Andriolo, Steven Archer, Elizabeth Archibald,
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François Avril, Nicolas Bell, Stasa Bibic, Jackie Brown, Lucia Burgio, Andrea Clarke, Donal
Cooper, Rémy Cordonnier, Sharon Cure, Christopher de Hamel, Charlotte Denoël,
Greti Dinkova-Bruun, John K. Delaney, Mike Dobby, Kathryn Dooley, Stephen Elliott,
Michelle Facini, Richard Gameson, Lisha Glinsman, Robin Halwas, Andrea Harrandt,
Nicholas Herman, Petra Hofbauerová, Mara Hofmann, Michael J. Huxtable, Peter Jones,
Martin Kauffmann, Ada Labriola, Giles Mandelbrote, Jan Matějka, Kathryn McKee, David
McKitterick, Bärbel Mund, Joshua O’Driscoll, Doris Oltrogge, Anuradha Pallipurath,
Catherine Patterson, Suzanne Paul, Marcello Picollo, Max Plassmann, Tee Quakhaan,
Juliet Ralph, Kate Rudy, Joseph Shemtov, Catherine Sutherland, Chris Titmus, Karen
Trentelman, Nancy Turner, Dominique Vanwijnsberghe, Jean Vilbas, Roger Wieck, Grant
Young and Tomáš Zubec.
I thank Bruker Elemental, Analytik Ltd., ASDi’s Goetz Instrument Program and
MOLAB® (through the CHARISMA European project) for short-term loans of analytical
equipment during the very early stages of this project. Technical analyses of some manu­
scripts were carried out in collaboration with Andrew Beeby (Durham University), Kate
Nicholson (Northumbria University), Koen Janssens and Stijn Legrand (University of
Antwerp), Luca Nodari (IENI-CNR), Dennis Murphy (SmartDrive), Haida Liang and
Sammy Cheung (Nottingham Trent University).
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From the moment I mentioned COLOUR, Elly Miller and Johan van der Becke embraced
the idea with enthusiasm. As the catalogue began to take shape, they guided me through
the production process with characteristic wisdom, style and wit. Mike Blacker designed
a most elegant book. His talent and ingenuity solved the challenge of presenting medieval
images, modern scientific data and art-historical interpretations in a seamless whole. It was
a pleasure to work with the exquisite images provided by photographers in and beyond
Cambridge. I am particularly grateful to the Museum’s Photographers Michael Jones and
Andrew Norman.
Neither the exhibition nor its catalogue could have been realised without the support of
numerous individuals, trusts and foundations.The art-historical and scientific research began
thanks to the inspired vision and tremendous generosity of a private benefactor who also
sponsored the catalogue production. The Isaac Newton Trust matched the private donation
and the MINIARE project was launched with a grant from Cambridge University’s Large
Cross-School Funding Bids. Subsequent grants from the Esmée Fairbairn Foundation, the
Finnis Scott Foundation, the Mercers’ Company, the Pilgrim Trust, the Zeno Karl Schindler
Foundation and, most recently, the British Academy’s Neil Ker Memorial Fund ensured the
completion of the first stage of our research which we present in COLOUR.The Sumitomo
Foundation and the National Manuscripts Conservation Trust funded conservation work.
The Museum’s special supporters, the Marlay Group, contributed generously to both
research and conservation. The considerable costs of the exhibition’s practical aspects were
underwritten by the Monument Trust. I am very grateful to all of our supporters for their
generosity and enthusiasm for our work.
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I thank John, Julie and Patrick for providing bike loads of books, designing codicological
diagrams, listening patiently and contributing wittily to conversations about artists’ pigments,
medieval optics, modern colour science and much more.
Stella Panayotova
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contributors
Contributors
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François Avril – FA
Emeritus Curator, Département des Manuscrits,
Bibliothèque nationale de France, Paris
Dr Cillian O’Hogan – CO’H
Classical Studies Department,
University of Waterloo
Dr Spike Bucklow – SB
Hamilton Kerr Institute, Fitzwilliam Museum,
University of Cambridge
Dr Doris Oltrogge – DO
Institut für Restaurierungs- und
Konservierungswissenschaft, Cologne
Edward Cheese
Department of Manuscripts and Printed Books,
Fitzwilliam Museum, University of Cambridge
Dr Stella Panayotova – SP
Department of Manuscripts and Printed Books,
Fitzwilliam Museum, University of Cambridge
Dr Daniele Cuneo – DC
Institute for Area Studies, Leiden University
Dr Ioanna Rapti – IR
Section des Sciences Religieuses,
École Pratique des Hautes Études, Paris
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Dr Marie D’Autume
École normale supérieure, Cachan
Prof. Richard Gameson – RG
Department of History, Durham University
Rebecca Honold
Preservation and Conservation,
Herzog August Bibliothek, Wolfenbüttel
Dr Deirdre Jackson – DJ
Department of Manuscripts and Printed Books,
Fitzwilliam Museum, University of Cambridge
Dr Paola Ricciardi – PR
Department of Manuscripts and Printed Books,
Fitzwilliam Museum, University of Cambridge
Kristine Rose Beers – KRB
Conservation Department,
Chester Beatty Library, Dublin
Dr Carola-Bibiane Schönlieb
Department of Applied Mathematics and
Theoretical Physics, University of Cambridge
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Dr Ada Labriola – AL
Independent scholar, Florence
Nancy Turner – NT
Department of Paper Conservation,
J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles
Dr Elizabeth Moodey – EM
Department of History of Art,
Vanderbilt University, Nashville, TN
Dr Elaine Wright – EW
Islamic Collections Department,
Chester Beatty Library, Dublin
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Prof. Nigel Morgan – NM
Emeritus Professor, Department of History
of Art, University of Cambridge
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ill. 1.1 Image to come
ill. 1.1 The Soul conversing with Fear (Crainte) and Contrition. Fitzwilliam Museum, MS 165, fol. 34v
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section one : colour in illuminated manuscripts
1
Colour in Illuminated
Manuscripts
Stella Panayotova
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olour is simply an effect of light . This fundamental principle, first established in
©
ill. 1.2 Creation of
the eight celestial
spheres and the four
elements: red fire,
blue air, green water,
brown earth.
Fitzwilliam Museum,
MS 197 (detail)
the seventeenth century by a young Cambridge scholar, Isaac Newton, was gradually
accepted by scientists and artists in the course of the next two centuries.1 Today, we know
that the hues we observe are not woven into the material fabric of objects. Rather, they
are the manifestations of light reflected, absorbed, emitted or transmitted by the objects,
sensed by the eye and processed by the brain. Nevertheless, colour remains a defining
characteristic of the physical world as we experience and describe it. An all-embracing
cultural phenomenon, it defines and expresses global fashions, regional trends and individual
tastes. Colour is also a subject of study in numerous disciplines, from art history, linguistics
and psychology to chemistry, physics, biology, neuroscience, sociology and marketing.
In medieval and early modern times – much as today – colour exerted a powerful influence.2 In mundane objects and sumptuous art works it reflected aesthetic, moral, religious
and social paradigms, while also inspiring intense
individual experiences and encoding complex
messages (ill. 1.1).3 This extraordinary power
stemmed from an understanding of colour different from ours – an understanding inherited
from Antiquity and redefined in the Middle Ages
that held sway until the seventeenth century.4
Colour was considered an intrin­sic property of
the material world, a phenomenon distinct from
(though closely related to) light. Whether it was
permanent (‘substantial’) as in most objects or
evanescent (‘accidental’) as in the rainbow or
the peacock’s feathers, colour was deemed integral to the fabric of the universe (the macro­
cosm) and the human body (the microcosm). It
was inherent in the world’s building blocks, the
four elements: red fire, green water and the less
chromatically stable air (blue or white) and earth
(black, grey, yellow or brown) (ill.1.2). Since all
matter was composed of one or more of the four
elements, it possessed their colours and qualities
of hot, cold, dry and wet. The balance of these
colours and qualities in the human body’s four
humours determined the four complexions and
the four temperaments (ills. 12.5, 12.6, 12.7).5
The synchrony of these psychosomatic, quadripartite entities depended on their alignment
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with nature’s tetrads, such as the four seasons and the four elements. The colours of the
latter were associated with the four colours of the rainbow. These, in turn, were identified
with the four colours of ancient painters that had been enshrined in the writings of Plato,
Pliny and Cicero, and were still being discussed in the sixteenth century.6
Two groups of medieval and Renaissance professionals attempted to master and transform
the properties of colourful materials: artists and alchemists.7 Their workshops and tools have
vanished. Thankfully, alchemists’ scrolls and artists’ treatises offer insights into their concepts
and practices.8 Illuminated manuscripts preserve abundant gold and colours, often as fresh and
vibrant as they were when first applied. War, greed, puritanical zeal, time and the elements
have stripped the gold and pigments from sculptures and ivories, leaving faint traces of their
original polychromy. Frescoes have been white washed, mosaics plastered over, stained-glass
windows smashed and precious metalwork melted down. Illuminated manuscripts – the best
preserved repositories of medieval and Renaissance painting – offer the largest resource for the
study of colour in Western Europe from the sixth to the sixteenth century.9
And yet, the systematic investigation of colours in illuminated manuscripts is a relatively
new field. For over a century, art historians have considered the materials of medieval
and Renaissance easel and wall paintings, but only in recent decades have they begun to
investigate the pigments in manuscripts. Examining the physical composition of panels and
frescos has been prompted mainly by conservators’ needs to identify the original materials
before restoring the objects. Identification of the painting materials often, in turn, informs
art-historical studies. In the case of manuscripts, the reverse pertains. Since their conservation
has traditionally focused on parchment, paper and binding repairs, the technical analysis of
pigments was rarely a necessity in the past. It is now a rapidly developing field, stimulated
primarily by art-historical enquiry. This, in turn, benefits conservation.10
Recent discoveries presented in this catalogue are the result of collaborations between
three types of experts, receptive to each other’s interests and methodologies: manuscript
scholars, curators and art historians aware of the chemical properties of pigments, and of the
possibilities and limitations of scientific equipment; scientists11 attuned both to the specific
contexts in which painting materials were used and the broader, cultural significance of
their data; and conservators interested in the aesthetic as well as mechanical aspects of
colourants.12 Science is not being used to dissect the illuminations, stripping them down
to their bare bones. On the contrary, it helps reconstruct them from the artists’ original
concepts through their choice of materials to the finished masterpieces. The discoveries
shared on the following pages range from the systematic characterization of common
pigments and the identification of unusual ones to challenging long-held misconceptions
and unmasking modern forgeries.13
The most pervasive myths are that manuscript illuminators employed very few pigments
in their pure state, and used only glair (egg white) or gums (tree sap) as binding media,
unlike panel painters who applied numerous colourants in complex mixtures, and bound
them in egg yolk (and later in oil). Such oppositions are rooted in the nineteenth-century
taxonomy of the visual arts. In this narrative, monumental painting, elevated to the status
of a pre-eminent Renaissance artistic medium, was praised as continuously evolving, while
manuscript illumination was perceived as a quintessentially medieval, static art form.
This catalogue traces remarkable developments in European illumination over the course
of ten centuries. Even a cursory glance at the first few exhibits (Cat. 1-10) shows how the
palette expanded from the early medieval to the early modern period. The colour scheme
of the eight-century Northumbrian Gospels is limited to red, green, yellow and purple
set against the creamy parchment and black ink (Cat. 2). In addition to these colours, the
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section one : colour in illuminated manuscripts
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twelfth-century Cologne Gospels contains blue, pink, lead white and gold, with some hues
achieved through mixtures (Cat. 4). The palette of the sixteenth-century Venetian Adoration
of the Magi boasts two types of gold and a rainbow of colours, including complex mixtures
and new materials borrowed from the textile, ceramic and glass industries (Cat. 8). If we
compare early medieval illuminations to the few surviving contemporary frescos and panels,
we find a similarly modest range of colours in all. Likewise, the expanding palettes of
late medieval and Renaissance manuscripts are comparable to those used in contemporary
monumental painting. Even unusual pigments rarely found in panel paintings from the
late fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries are now being identified in manuscripts, some
contemporary, others predating the paintings by as much as half a century.14
The assumption that medieval illuminators employed only simple, unmixed pigments is
questioned by the mounting scientific evidence. Mixtures of two pigments are frequently
identified in hues which cannot be easily obtained from a single colourant, whose single
source is chemically unstable or whose tonality could be nuanced.15 Mixtures are being
detected in illuminations from the eleventh century onwards and increasingly thereafter,
with particularly complex compositions occurring in flesh tones.16 It is hardly surprising
that the earliest known depiction of a palette – the main tool for colour mixing – occurs
in a manuscript. It is shown in use by female artists in a copy of Boccaccio made in Paris
in 1402.17 Within a century, the palette would become a standard attribute of St Luke, the
patron of painters (ill. 1.3). It was clearly known to illuminators, not least because many of
them were also panel painters.18
As for binding media, scientific analyses reveal that illuminators used not only the common
gums and glair, but also employed egg yolk selectively and strategically.19 While most of
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ill. 1.3 St Luke, palette in hand, painting
the Virgin. Fitzwilliam Museum,
MS 1058-1975, fol. 36r (detail)
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ill. 2.1 Colourful earths and clays. © Eva-Louise Fowler, 2011, Sedgwick Museum of Earth Sciences, University of Cambridge
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section two : the illuminators ’ palette
2
The Illuminators’ Palette
Paola Ricciardi and Kristine Rose Beers
M
R enaissance illuminators had a wide range of colouring materials
at their disposal, which they used in creative ways and multiple combinations to obtain
the stunningly beautiful images which we can observe, often still bright and colourful, in
manuscripts today.
This chapter does not aim to provide an exhaustive list of all artists’ materials, but rather
an account of the colourants commonly mentioned in historic treatises as employed in
manuscript illumination (see Essay 5) vis-à-vis those identified within manuscripts through
analytical examination. These include the 112 manuscripts analysed by the MINIARE
project for this exhibition, as well as those on which analytical data have been published by
other researchers.
The materials discussed are both organic and inorganic. Inorganic colours are made by
grinding naturally occurring minerals (ill. 2.1), or through processing other substances to
create an insoluble pigment. As such, inorganic colours can be either natural or synthetic.
Organic colours are made from plant or animal sources, either painted directly as a dye, or
precipitated onto an inorganic pigment to form a lake that could be stored for later use.1
Organics tended to be used locally and seasonally, but the most highly prized colours were
traded across continents (see Essay 3).
edieval and
©
ill. 2.2 Vermilion
and red lead.
Fitzwilliam
Museum, MS 251,
fol. 163r (detail)
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Red
Red pigments were some of the earliest colours to be
used by humans. Naturally occurring red earths owe their
colour to their high iron content, and can be used almost
directly from the ground with little processing. They are
most often found in mixture with other pigments. They
were rarely used in their pure form by Western illuminators
except for the red clay best known as ‘Armenian bole’,
employed as part of the preparatory layer for gold leaf.2
The naturally occurring mineral minium (a lead
oxide) and its synthetic analogue red lead (ill. 2.2) gave a
vibrant and affordable orange colour, used extensively by
illuminators from the tenth (Cat. 3) through the end of
the sixteenth century (Cat. 8).
Cinnabar, a bright red natural sulphide of mercury,
had been used by Asian artists possibly since the second
millennium BC,3 but was scarce and therefore very
expensive. By the fourteenth century, however, the
manufacture of its synthetic analogue, vermilion, was well
established. Cinnabar and vermilion are almost impossible
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to distinguish analytically. Forms of mercury sulphide have been identified on many of the
manuscripts analysed for this exhibition, dating from the late eleventh (Cat. 56) until the
end of the sixteenth century (Cat. 8).4
Yellow
Yellow colours occur frequently in manuscript painting, although stable and light-fast
yellow colourants were elusive. Naturally occurring yellow earths and ochres have been
used since prehistory in much the same way as their red equivalents, and could be used to
obtain both light (Cat. 12) and dark yellow-orange hues (Cat. 83).
Orpiment (arsenic sulphide) is one of the most common yellow pigments identified in
manuscripts, both from Europe and elsewhere. Despite its extreme toxicity and reactivity,5
it was widely used by illuminators, as in an eleventh-century Gospels (Cat. 56), where it
has caused the surrounding silver to tarnish. Occasionally, orpiment is found together with
realgar, the closely related yellow-orange mineral (Cat. 11). The latter can easily transform to
pararealgar via a light-induced transition,6 meaning that the change may take place on the
page resulting in frequent identification of the two together (Cat. 100). Pararealgar was also
identified in the majority of yellow areas on a sixteenth-century fragment painted in Venice
(Cat. 8). Here, its presence seems intentional, rather than the result of exposure to light, since
no fading of the other colourants, some of them light-sensitive, appears to have taken place.
An arsenic sulphide glass, a type of material only recently recognised securely on painted
objects,7 was identified in two manuscripts both painted c.1500 (Cat. 39, Cat. 97).
Yellow pigments based on lead and tin are a European phenomenon, and exist in two
main forms. Lead-tin yellow type I has been identified in a large number of manuscripts and
is probably the most common yellow pigment used in easel painting between the fifteenth
and the first half of the eighteenth century. Lead-tin yellow type II derives from the ancient
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ill. 2.3 Lead-tin
yellow type II is
used in the sky
and pararealgar
in the king’s
collar. Fitzwilliam
Museum, Marlay
cutting It. 40
(detail)
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glass industry and is first seen in use by painters in thirteenth century Florence.8 Possibly
variable in composition, its identification is not straightforward, but it was recognised as
the light yellow material used to paint the sky and grass in the aforementioned Venetian
fragment (ill. 2.3, Cat. 8).9
Organic yellows are predominantly local, and derived from plant sources. They cannot
be securely identified with non-invasive techniques. Weld, also known as ‘fuller’s weed’
or ‘dyer’s weed’, was widely used in textile production, but the dye derived from Reseda
luteola is also mentioned in historic treatises for use in manuscript illumination.10 Saffron,
the golden yellow dye extracted from the stamens at the centre of the Crocus sativus flower,
was labour intensive to harvest and expensive (see Essay 3). Despite its cost and fugitivity in
light, its golden hue was highly esteemed. Its benefit as a buffer to the corrosive properties
of verdigris (see below) may also have added to its value in manuscript painting, particularly
in the Near East.11
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ill. 2.4 A wash
of ultramarine is
painted over the
light blue base
layer containing
azurite. Fitzwilliam
Museum, MS 298,
fol. 31v (detail)
Blue
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Of all the naturally occurring mineral colours, ultramarine blue was the most valuable.
Derived from the mineral lapis lazuli, its provenance and method of production were
shrouded in mystery, and the pigment was known only to have come from ‘beyond the sea.’
Despite its cost, ultramarine was lavishly used by illuminators and has been identified in half
of the manuscripts analysed.
Azurite is a blue hydrated copper carbonate mineral which was frequently employed as a
cheaper alternative to ultramarine. The selective use of these two pigments was sometimes
meaningful, their relative cost corresponding to hierarchies of decoration and/or symbolic
values (see Essay 14 and Cat. 6, Cat. 96-97). Occasionally, the two minerals were combined
in the same blue area in an expedient manner, with ultramarine painted in thin layers over
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