Pigments of Canada

 

By Cornelius Varley

 

[Originally published by the Literary and Historical Society of Quebec in Transactions, Original Series, Volume 3 (1837)]

 

Note by the Publishing Committee, respecting the Canadian Pigments sent to the Society for the Encouragement of Arts, &c. by the late W. Green, Esq.

 

The 47th vol. part 1, of the Transactions of the Society of Arts, contains, at page 39, a note by Mr. Cornelius Varley, upon the red lake sent to the Society from Canada, an account of which forms the most important part of the second article in the 1st vol. of our own Transactions. When specimens of the manufactured materials alluded to in that article, were submitted to the examination of the above mentioned artist, he re­ported so favourably upon the red lake, as to occasion the award by the Society of Arts of its Gold Isis Medal to Mr. Green. After a more minute examination of the red pig­ments in question, Mr. Varley conceived that he had not fully done it justice, in con­sequence of which another communication was made to the Society upon the subject, which was inserted in a subsequent number of its Transactions. The following are ex­tracts from these communications.

 

February 20, 1828. "I have compared the colours sent by Mr. Green from Canada, with those in common, use, and find them generally very good. The dark reddish brown, No. 1[1], is a very useful colour, being nearly the same tint, but richer than madder brown. The lake, No. 2[2], is a very valuable co­lour; it is a little flesh coloured or yellowish, when com­pared with Mr. Field's madder pink, and therefore not quite equal to it, but is as often wanted: it is much higher in tone than vermillion."

 

March 12, 1830. "When the Committee requested me to make trial of Mr. Green's lake from Canada, I examined it in reference to what had been a great desideratum till accomplished by Mr. Field in madder-lake, namely, to obtain the brightest permanent red quite free from any bias to yellow. Now this being effected in the brightest madder-lake, which has rather a bias to purple, renders it very valuable for mixing with blues, by which a brighter permanent purple is ob­tained than formerly. Therefore, in my note in Vol. XLVI. I said it was not quite equal to the best madder, but I should have added, for this particular purpose; for since writing that, I have found it to be as much superior to madder for an orange tint, as madder is for a purple, ren­dering the two lakes quite equal and equally to be desired, as neither of them is a substitute for the other. Being de­sirous of obtaining the brightest possible glow, for repre­senting a sunset in water colours, which is generally done by mixing red and yellow, I took all the reds and yellows I possessed, to try which mixture destroyed the least light and could be laid the clearest; the result was, that the golden coloured chromer with Mr. Green's lake gave the brightest colour, and may be said quite clear; thus render­ing it every way as much to be desired in the market as the madder was formerly."