Publisher's description:
An internationally renowned expert relates the secrets behind the recipes, materials, and processes used by medieval painters to obtain brilliance and permanence. Based on years of study of antique manuscripts and modern laboratory analysis, this volume explains carriers and grounds, binding media, pigments, coloring materials, and metals used in painting.

From the back cover:
Medieval painters built up a tremendous range of technical resources for obtaining brilliance and permanence. In this volume, an internationally known authority on medieval paint technology describes these often jealously guarded recipes, lists of materials, and processes.
Based upon years of study of medieval manuscripts and enlarged by laboratory analysis of medieval paintings, this book discusses carriers and grounds, binding media, pigments, coloring materials, and metals used in painting.
It describes the surfaces that the medieval artist painted upon, detailing their preparation. It analyzes binding media, discussing relative merits of glair vs. gums, oil glazes, and other matters. It tells how the masters obtained their colors, how they processed them, and how they applied them. It tells how metals were prepared for use in painting, how gold powders and leaf were laid on, and dozens of other techniques.
Simply written, easy to read, this book will be invaluable to art historians, students of medieval painting and civilization, and historians of culture. Although it contains few fully developed recipes, it will interest any practicing artist with its discussion of methods of brightening colors and assuring permanence.
"A rich feast," The Times (London). "Enables the connoiseur, artist, and collector to obtain the distilled essence of Thompson's researches in an easily read and simple form," Nature (London). "A mine of technical information for the artist," Saturday Review of Literature.

Contents:
page 7 FOREWORD BY BERNHARD BERENSON
9 PREFACE
17 INTRODUCTION
23 I. CARRIERS AND GROUNDS
23 Terminology
24 The importance of book painting
24 Parchment-making
27 Vellum
28 Qualities of parchment
29 Preparations
30 Wooden surfaces
31 The functions of gesso
32 The use of gesso
33 The construction of a Polyptych
35 Variations of method
36 Other grounds
37 Canvas
38 Walls and plasters
41 Structural woodwork
42 II. BINDING MEDIA
42 The three orders of binding
43 Functions of vehicles
44 Viscosity effects
45 Effects of transparency
46 Quantity relations
47 Optics and art history
49 Abuses of wax
50 Media for illumination-Glair
52 Craftsmanship and aesthetic
53 Craftsmanship and conscience
54 Craftsmanship and industry
55 Preservation of glair
55 Glair v. gums
57 Gum arabic
58 Gum tragacanth
58 Size
59 Adjuncts to glair
62 Media for panel painting-Egg tempera
64 Size
65 Oil glazes
67 Oils and varnishes
68 Media for wall painting-Lime
69 Origin of true fresco
70 Palimpsests
71 Secco painting
73 Media for structural wood painting
73 Oil and size
74 III. PIGMENTS
74 Classifications
75 Elements
75 Minerals
78 Vegetable extracts
78 Manufactured salts
80 BLACK COLOURS
81 Inks
83 Lampblack
85 Vine-charcoal black
85 Colour grinding
87 Other carbon blacks
88 Graphite
88 Ivory black
88 BROWN COLOURS
89 WHITE PIGMENTS
90 Manufacture of white lead
92 Modern and medieval white leads
94 Qualities of white lead
94 Bone white
95 Other inert whites
96 Lime whites
97 RED COLOURS
98 Sinopia
99 The range of ochres
99 Appetites for colour
100 Minium-orange lead
102 Minium-cinnabar
102 Natural cinnabar
103 Vermilion
103 The invention of vermilion
105 Early experimental chemistry
105 Supply and demand
106 Influence of vermilion
107 A defect of vermilion
108 Tempering
108 The red lakes
109 Lac lake
110 Hedera and lacca
111 Grain
112 Confusion of nomenclature
113 Confusion of materials-Kermes
115 Grain lakes
116 Brazil wood
117 Brazil lakes
117 Transparent
118 Opaque
120 Brazil extracts
120 The importance of brazil colours
121 Madder
124 Dragonsblood
126 Folium
127 BLUE COLOURS
128 Effects of age
129 Neutrals
130 Azurite
131 Preparation of azurite
132 Characteristics of azurite blues
135 Indigo
135 Woad
136 Woad indigo
136 Woad cultivation
138 Manufacture
138 Social and economic consequences
139 Compound indigo pigments
140 Other vegetable blues
141 Turnsole
141 Identification
143 Manufacture
143 Clothlets
145 Ultramarine azure
146 Manufacture
148 Intrinsic value
150 Distribution
151 Artificial copper blues
152 Blue bice
153 Copper-lime-ammonia compounds
154 The silver-blue mystery
155 The azure-vermilion tangle
155 PURPLE COLOURS
156 The whelk reds
158 Folium and archil
159 Mixed purples
160 GREEN COLOURS
160 Malachite green
162 The green earths
163 Verdigris
165 Effects of age
167 Verdifris in books
168 Salt Green and Rouen green
169 Incompatibilities
169 Sap green
171 Iris green
172 Other colours from iris
172 Honeysuckle and nightshade greens
173 Mixed greens
174 YELLOW COLOURS
175 Medieval use of yellow
175 Yellow ochres
176 Orpiment
177 Realgar
178 Incompatibilities of orpiment
178 Bile yellows
179 Giallorino-Massicot
180 Substitutes for gold
181 Mosaic gold
184 Other imitations of gold
184 Celandine
184 Aloes
184 Saffron
185 Preparation and use
186 Other organic yellows
187 Rhamnus yellows-Extracts and lakes
187 Weld lakes-Arzica
188 Fustic and others
190 IV. METALS
191 Gold in powder
193 Fire gilding
194 Amalgams
194 Gold in leaf
195 Thickness of medieval gold
196 Reflecting surfaces-Burnishing
198 River gold
198 Chrysography with gold inks
199 Unburnished pigment gold
202 The beginnings of mordant gilding
203 Composition of a water mordant
205 Burnished water-mordant gilding
206 The binders
207 The colouring agents
208 The bulk-formers
209 Other ingredients
209 Unburnished water mordants
210 Gilding by attrition
211 The background of craftsmanship
211 Burnishers and burnishing
215 The metallic ground
216 Gold-the original intent
218 Preparation of surfaces
219 Application of gold leaf
220 Burnishing
221 Separation of gold and colour
222 Tooling the gold
225 Sgraffito
226 Oil mordants
228 A sensitive compound
231 INDEX