PAINTING MATERIALS

that the brush handle will be caught there and the hairs kept immersed in the
fluid. Such a cleaner was advertised in the catalogue of Winsor and Newton for

1863.

Burnisher* An instrument of hard stone (figure 4) has been used from remote
antiquity for polishing the leaf or foil of gold or other metals. To be burnished,
the leaf has to be laid by what is now called 'water gilding' over a layer of amor-
phous earth or bole mixed with size. The usual stone for modern burnishers is
agate, and it is produced by manufacturers in a number of shapes suitable for fine

FIGURE 3. Brush cleaners or washers as sold for the modern practice of oil painting:
GO a circular base carrying a beaker of oil or turpentine above which is a metal clip for
holding brush handles; (£) a rectangular container for the turpentine or oil, open at the
top, into which fits a frame 0&')> which is open at both top and bottom and contains
a wire grating. When the grating is submerged, the brush is dragged across it in the fluid.

illuminations and for heavier, broader work. Haematite, a stone recommended
for burnishers by Cennino Cennini (C. CXXXV, Thompson, p. 82), is still some-
what used in branches of the gilding trade. Various other stones were common in
the Middle Ages and Renaissance, including sapphires, emeralds, and rubies.
Fine burnishers were frequently made from the teeth of animals, and a pointed,
hook-shaped burnisher of agate is still referred to as a dog tooth. A detail of a wall
painting from the Egyptian tomb of Nebamen and Ipuky (Thebes, no. 181) shows
one of the artisans in the scene using a burnisher while another is stamping designs
in the gold* The date of this is c 1380 B.C. A MS. of the XIII century A.D.,
De Coloribus et Artibus Romanorum (Merrifield, I, 220), describes making bur-
nishers from haematite, a method which includes smoothing on a grindstone, tile,
and whetstone, followed by polishing on a plate of lead, on the hairy side of a
cowskin, and afterwards on poplar wood. The teeth of animals are said to have
been polished in the same way.
Btmaishing Slab, a flat piece of hard material put under parchment when gold
leaf used in illuminations is being burnished. Johnston (p. 153), in his discussion of
modern methods of writing and illuminating, suggests a flat piece of vulcanite,
celluloid, or metal for this purpose.