Page - 264 - in Europäische Bild- und Buchkultur im 13. Jahrhundert

264 stElla panayotoVa gold appears in the Bird Psalter of c. 1285‒1290 (pl. 15c).58 Our only example outside England comes from a Missal made in Perugia c. 1300 (pl. 15d).59 We have not yet found it in manuscripts from other regions before 1300. This fact, the pigment’s visual observation in other English and Italian examples of the late 1200s, and its fre- quent identification in English manuscripts of the early 1300s60 suggest that mosaic gold was either an English invention or an Italian one that reached England very ear- ly. This hypothesis needs to be tested by analysing more manuscripts across Europe. Binders According to artists’ treatises and recipe collections,61 illuminators employed a ran- ge of binders: egg white (glair), resins including gum Arabic and parchment, horn or fish glue. Their actual use in manuscripts is hard to establish, as non-invasi- ve techniques can rarely differentiate between them or distinguish them from the parchment.62 Nevertheless, gum Arabic was detected in the flesh tones of a 1270s Parisian miniature (pl. 3b), in several areas in Isabelle’s Psalter-Hours, and in ul- tramarine drapery in one of Master Honoré’s images (MS 368, pl. 10). Glair was probably used in the rest of these images as spectra from other areas are almost identical to those of the parchment. Historic references to egg yolk as a binder in manuscripts are scarce and modern publications undermine its use because of it being too greasy for parchment. Yet, its fat content makes its distinction from parchment and other binders possible with non-invasive techniques leading to its identification in a growing number of manuscripts.63 Theoretically, at least in manuscripts illuminated north of the Alps, the presence of lipids could also indicate linseed oil, used in coeval Northern European panel and wall painting.64 However, given the unsuitability of linseed oil 58 See n. 19. 59 Cambridge, Fitzwilliam Museum, MS McClean 201.11d. Morgan / Panayotova / Rey- nolds, Catalogue (cit. n. 21), no. 275. For mosaic gold identified in two other Italian ma- nuscripts of c. 1300, see Marina Bicchieri et al.: Illuminations. Secrets, alchemy and con- servation in three case studies. In: Revista de história da arte ser. W/1 (2011), pp. 175‒181. For an earlier Italian example, a Bolognese leaf from the third quarter of the thirteenth century (Los Angeles, The J. Paul Getty Museum, 95.MS.70 (MS 62), see Nancy Turner: Reflecting a Heavenly Light. Gold and other Metals in Medieval and Renaissance Ma- nuscripts. In: Panayotova / Ricciardi, Manuscripts (cit. n. 5), pp. 78‒94, at p. 90. 60 Stella Panayotova / Lucía Pereira-Pardo / Paola Ricciardi: Illuminators’ Materials and Techniques in Fourteenth-Century English Manuscripts. In: Panayotova / Ricciardi, Manuscripts (cit. n. 5), pp. 46‒64. 61 Daniel Thompson / George Hamilton: De Arte Illuminandi, New Haven 1933, pp. 2, 12‒14. Mark Clarke: Mediaeval Painters’ Materials and Techniques. The Montpellier Liber diversarum arcium. London 2011, pp. 117‒119. 62 Paola Ricciardi et al.: Near Infrared Reflectance Imaging Spectroscopy to Map Paint Binders In Situ on Illuminated Manuscripts. In: Angewandte Chemie, International Edition 51 (2012), pp. 5607‒5610. 63 Ricciardi et al., Near Infrared (cit. n. 62); Panayotova / Ricciardi, Secrets (cit. n. 4), pp. 125, 141‒142, 151. 64 Helen Howard: Pigments of English Medieval Wall Painting. London 2003. Painted Altar Frontals of Norway 1250‒1350, ed. by Unn Plahter et al., London 2004.