XXVII. A Chinese varnish suitable to all sorts of colours.XXVIII. Another Chinese varnish more particularly calculated for miniature painting.

Valuable Secrets concerning Arts and Trades:
or Approved Directions, from the best Artists, for the Various Methods...
Printed by Thomas Hubbard,
Norwich, 1795Chap. III. Secrets for the composition of Varnishes, &c.


XXVII. A Chinese varnish suitable to all sorts of colours.

1. Take one ounce of white amber; one quarter of an ounce of sandarak; as much of gum copal. Pound well all these together, and put them in a matrass perfectly dry. To every ounce of these three drugs, pounded and mixed thus together, put three ounces of spirit of wine. Stop well the matrass with a rag, over which you will put some paste made with flour, and then another rag, well tied over. Boil the varnish thus, over ember ashes, till the whole is dissolved, and this varnish is done. The method of applying it is as follows.

2. The piece intended for varnishing being previously well polished, you lay on it the proposed colour or colours, diluted in aquavitæ with some isinglass. Whe these are dry, pass on them two or three coats of thir varnish, according to discretion and taste; allowing the proper time between each coat of varnish to dry; and, when dry, you polish it with olive oil and tripoly, then rub the oil off with a rag.

Note. That if you intend this varnish for miniature pictures, you are to make an addition of equal parts of gum copal and white amber.


XXVIII. Another Chinese varnish more particularly calculated for miniature painting.

Take one ounce of white karabe, or amber; and one drachm of camphire, which you reduce into a subtile powder, and put in a matrass, with five ounces of spirit of wine. Set it in the sun to infuse, during the hottest days in July and August, and stir it two or three times a-day constantly. After a fortnight's infusing thus, put the matrass, for one hour only, over hot ashes; then pass all through a cloth, and keep it in a bottle well corked.