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illuminators’ matErials and tEchniquEs
for parchment and its absence from illuminators’ historic texts, egg yolk seems a
likelier source of the lipids identified in manuscripts.
Egg yolk found in illuminations may suggest links with panel painting. Al-
though not all painters-illuminators used it in their miniatures,65 those who did
employed it strategically. It has been identified in nine of the fifty manuscripts
featured in this study.66 In seven of them – from England (4), Germany (2) and
Italy (1) – it was found with red lead, vermilion or a mixture of both, enhancing
their warm lustre; vermilion with egg yolk was used for penwork initials in one case
(FM, MS 12) and for red script in another (St John’s MS K.30). Red areas aside, one
of the manuscripts has egg yolk with ultramarine (FM, MS 246) and another with
organic purple (FM, MS McClean 101). Egg yolk was also found with vermilion in
flesh-tone mixtures in two of the seven manuscripts: a Missal made in Hildesheim
c. 1200‒121567 and the Breslau Psalter. In the latter, egg yolk features in six images:
two by the Gaibana Master who worked on panel and four by the most accomplis-
hed Central European artist whose imposing figures and elaborately tooled gold
suggest experience with monumental painting.68
Conclusion
The fifty manuscripts featured here are hardly sufficient for a comprehensive cha-
racterisation of illuminators’ materials and techniques employed in the 1200s across
Europe. The scarcity of published comparative data makes the task particularly
daunting. Unlike early and late medieval material, thirteenth-century manuscripts
have rarely been the focus of scientific examination and more rarely still of in-
tegrated technical, codicological and art-historical analyses. It is hoped that this
preliminary survey may provide a basis for further cross-disciplinary studies and
statistically robust overviews.69
The mounting evidence, only a fraction of which can be presented here, ques-
tions the habitual emphasis on minerals and precious metals in the art-historical
literature as well as assertions that illuminators, unlike painters, favoured single
layers of pure, unmixed pigments. By the 1200s multiple layers, complex mixtures
(real and optical), organic colourants and glazes played a major role in manuscripts,
65 Panayotova / Ricciardi, Secrets (cit. n. 4), p. 125.
66 This survey and the table include only secure identifications of lipidic binders. They
exclude cases where traces were detected, although these may suggest mixed binders, as
there is no certainty about the amount of lipid present or its intentional use. The seven
secure identifications are: Cambridge, St John’s College, MS K.30, Trinity College, MS
R.16.2, and Fitzwilliam Museum, MSS 12, 246, 36‒1950, CFM 3, McClean 44, McClean
101, McClean 201.11d.
67 Cambridge, Fitzwilliam Museum, MS CFM 3. Morgan / Panayotova, Catalogue (cit. n.
22), no. 71.
68 Panayotova / Morgan / Ricciardi, Breslau Psalter (cit. n. 30), pp. 77, 80, 82, 260, 263,
265.
69 The Pigments of British Illuminators, an AHRC-funded project (2018‒2020) undertaken
by Durham University’s Team Pigment in collaboration with the MINIARE project is
conducting a systematic analysis of English manuscripts, including thirteenth-century
examples.
Europäische Bild- und Buchkultur im 13. Jahrhundert
- Title
- Europäische Bild- und Buchkultur im 13. Jahrhundert
- Author
- Christine Beier
- Editor
- Michaela Schuller-Juckes
- Publisher
- Böhlau Verlag
- Location
- Wien
- Date
- 2020
- Language
- German
- License
- CC BY 4.0
- ISBN
- 978-3-205-21193-8
- Size
- 18.5 x 27.8 cm
- Pages
- 290
- Categories
- Geschichte Chroniken