Dictionarium polygraphicum. To extract scarlet colour from Berries of Kermies, for making a fine lake.

Dictionarium Polygraphicum:
Or, The Whole Body of Arts Regularly Digested.
Vol II.
London: Printed for C. Hitch and C. Davis in Pater-noster Row, and S. Austen in St. Paul's Church Yard. MDCCXXXV.
1735
Several ways may be given for extracting the tincture of these grains for making Lake; but I shall only mention two; the first is indifferent tedious; but is very excellent, and produces a tincture whereby is made a most admirable fine lake.

The way of making the Lake in France is very modern, and it is but of late they have had the secret in Paris, which was brought from Venice.

Take a gallon of fair-water, and 4 pound of whearen bran, a drams of oriental Piraster, and as much Fenugreek; set all in a kettle over a fire, till the water is milk-warm; keep your hand in it until you can bear the heat no longer; then take it off, and cover it with a cloth that the beat may continue the longer; let it stand for 24 hours, then run off the lixivium, and keep it for the following purpose.

Put 3 quarts of fair water to half the lixivium into a clean earthen vessel; set it on the fire, and make it boil, which when it begins to do, put in an ounce of the grain pounded to an impalpable powder, in a brass mortar, and searced; then having pounded a little crude tartar, to take off the remaining part of the grains on the bottom and sides of your mortar, and so put it in with the grains; when the water begins to boil again, take it off in an instant, and set it by to cool.

This done, and the water cold, take the shearings of scarlet woollen-drapery, and let them stain therein for about half an hour: afterwards squeeze it into another earthen pot by expression; and after you have thus drawn off all the tincture, put the shearings into the last pot; stirring them about very well with a small stick, that they may stain the sooner. Boil all for about half an hour over a gentle fire, or else the tincture will become black; then take out the shearings, and put them well ting'd into a vessel of cold water: about half an hour after pour off the water gently, and so put fresh on again; then press and spread them to dry in a clean place, where no dust can come at them.

When you have done this, make the following lixivium.

Lay Vine-ashes stalks in a hempen cloth doubled, or ashes of willow, or some other lighter wood; pour on them by degrees cold water, letting it strain through into a vessel set underneath; pour it again on the Ashes, and when it is all run through, set it by to settle for 24 hours, that the ashes which is carried off, may fall to the bottom. When you have done this, pour the lixivium by degrees into another vessel, having warm'd it.

When it begins to be cold, set it over a gentle fire, and let it boil, and it will become red; take a little of the shearings, press them well, and if it remain without colour, take off the kettle immediately; for the lixivium has extracted it entirely.

Then spread a linnen cloth over a free-stone bowl, set the shearings therein, and pour on the lixivium by little and little, to strain and yield the tincture, then squeeze the cloth and shear ings therein, to press out all the colour that remained in them; throw away the cloth; wash the shearings, clean and keep them for the like use another time.

Then put 12 ounces of roch-alum well powdered into a glass body full of cold water, letting it be quite dissolved; when this has been perfectly done, spread a linnen cloth over 2 staves, and set a large free-stone veflel underneath; put all the alum-water into the bottle of tincture, and strain it afterwards through this cloth: the lixivium will go thro' it clear, and leave the colour behind; but if it mould not be coloured; 'tis only straining it through again, and you'll have done.

Now to get the tincture, you must mix all that remains in the cloth, and gather it together, spreading it afterwards over new-made tiles (which have not been allowed time to moisten) on the pieces of linnen, and then mold them into troches to dry suddenly, without mouldying, which would spoil them.

Therefore great care must be taken that the tiles be not at all moist; and if they are, to change them, that it may dry the sooner, and thus you will have a Lake of an admirable colour for painting: you must lessen or improve the colour as you find occasion by a greater or lesser quantity of roch-alum.


A readier way to extract the tincture os KERMES Berries.

Tho' the Menstruum given above, made with shearings of scarlet cloth, be a very good one for this purpose, yet the following is a more easy one, and as effectual:

Take strong-water of the first run or distilling, and put it into a long-necked glass body; dissolve in it a pound os roch-alum, adding an ounce of Kermes Berries finely powdered and searced; let it digest well, shaking the matrass from time to time, and the strong-waters will draw to them all the tincture of the Kermes, and be very finely coloured; then let all settle for 4 days, and afterwards pour it gently into a glazed earthen vessel.

Dissolve jounces ofroch-alum in running-water, and pour this into the strong-waters, or tincture of Kermes to cause a separation: filter it through a linnen-cloth, and the strong-waters will fall through white, leaving the tincture behind. If they be any thing coloured, strain them again and again, till they be clear: take up the Uke or colour with a wooden spoon, and make it into troches; drying them as directed for the former. Thus you may have a quantity of this colour, or lake, as fine and as good as the former.