View of the Russian Empire,
During the Reign of Catharine the Second, and to the Close of the Eighteenth Century.
By William Tooke, F. R. S.
Member of the Imperial Academy of Sciences and the Free Economical Society at St. Petersburg.
In three volumes. Vol. III.
The Third Edition.
Dublin: Printed by P. Wogan, No. 23, Old-Bridge.
1801
Another kind of dyeing practised in Russia is the DYEING OF FURS. The great quantity of animal skins and furs, produced every year in Siberia and other parts of the Russian empire, are mostly bought up by the dealers untanned, and unprepared, and in that state brought to the towns, particularly to Mosco, where they first receive the necessary preparation; and the skinners there have the art of dyeing the hair in various ways, and especially of giving the ordinary or decayed sables a fine black glossy hue, which however the Greeks, who live in Mosco, and deal largely in furs, understand still better than the Russians; but both make a mystery of it. Notwithstanding which, we have been able to procure the following account of it:
For killing 2 lotes of litharge, take 1½ lote of copper-ashes, I lote of sal-ammoniac, 1 handful of ashes of brazil, ½lb. of lime and human-urine, and put all together in a vessel, paint the hair with it it cold twice distinctly, dry it, and beat it out. Afterwards roast little nutgalls, about ½lb. sprinkled with a couple of thimblefuls of linseed oil, in a luted pan, till, by frequently shaking the pan and by increasing the heat, they begin to found hollow; then let the pan cool of itself. The inside kernel must not be penetrated by the black of the scorching. To these pulverized nutgalls take one lote of English copperas, ½ to 1 lote of Roman alum, ½a lote of copper-ashes, 2 lote of litharge, 1 lote of verdegris, ½ lote of sal-ammoniac, 1 lote of sifted shumac, 1 lote of antimony or ceruse, and 1 can of rain-water. When all this is well mixed without the help of fire or more water, it must be laid on alternately with the foregoing killing-compound, taking care that after every painting the hair be well dried. In this state the coloured hair, turned inwards, must undergo for six hours the killing-compound, and then the dye is for the last time painted on and dried. Between the alternations of the laying on the dye, the fur, as always after colouring, is turned and trodden with feet; lastly the fur is rubbed against the hair with saw-dust.
The usual compound for dyeing the sables at Mosco is not so composed. Litharge, green vitriol, nutgalls and alum are almost the only ingredients. The Chinese coloured sables, which are seen in Siberia, are incomparably finer and more lasting than the Russian. But both are so often artificially coloured, that it is with some difficulty they can be distinguished from the natural. The white ice-fox is even at present in Mosco coloured an uncommonly fine black.
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