One Thousand Valuable Secrets, in the Elegant and Useful Arts by American Antiquarian Cookbook Collection

Author:American Antiquarian Cookbook Collection
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Andrews McMeel Publishing

§ IX. Preparation of the lapis lazuli to make ultramarine.

CXXXIII. Ift. The general manipulation of the whole process; each single part of which shall be treated of in particular, afterwards.

1. Take one pound, or whatever quantity you please, of lapis-lazuli. Let your stones be well chosen, and of that sort which are streaky with gold. Try their quality, whether good or bad, which is done thus. Break one bit of it, set it on red-hot coals, and blow as hard as you can for an hour, then take it off and let it cool. If in touching it, it drop like mould or dust, it is a sign it is not worth any thing: but if it remains hard and preserves its color, it is good. When you have thus made yourself sure of the quality of the stone, break it all in small knobs, put them in a crucible on a melting fire, which by strength of bellows you push on for an hour and a quarter. When this is done throw them into the strongest double distilled wine vinegar. When they are thus extinguished in it, take them out to dry, and prepare the following water.

2. Boil a little raw white honey with two pints of water in a glazed pipkin. Skim it so long as there comes any scum on it; then take it off to cool; and, when cold, dissolve in it the bigness of a nut of the best dragon’s blood reduced into a subtile powder. Run this dissolution through a white cloth into a glazed earthen pot. Observe to make your water (with that dragon’s blood) neither too red, nor too clear, but to keep a just medium between both, that the azure may take a finer hue.—With this liquor grind, for the space of an hour and a half, your above-mentioned lapis lazuli, then gather it up into a large glazed vessel, and then let it dry in the shade, but guard off the sun, otherwise it will undoubtedly lose its color. When it is perfectly dry, grind it a-new into a very fine powder, then pack and keep it tied very closely in fine white linen. Then proceed to the following paste.

3. Take two ounces of the best white rosin, an equal quantity of Greek pitch, and the same quantity again of mastich, lintseed oil, turpentine, and virgin wax. Powder what is powderable, and cut small what is not. Put all into a new glazed pipkin, and boil it to perfection; which you know by letting a drop fall into cold water and taking it out with your fingers. For if it do not stick to your lingers, it is done to perfection, and if it do, it is not.—When, therefore, it is done to perfection, nun it quite hot through a sheer-cloth into a pan of cold water, wherein leave it till perfectly hard: then take it out and let it dry. When you want to incorporate it with the powder, proceed as follows.

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