Small Insect--coccus Ficus--made For The Sake Of Depositing Its Ova On
:
ON THE PRIMARY, RED.
the branches of several plants, found in Siam, Assam, and Bengal. The
twigs soon become encrusted with a mammelated substance of a red colour
more or less deep, nearly transparent, hard, and having a brilliant
conchoidal fracture. The roughly-prepared coating is imported in two
forms, called lac-lake and lac-dye, which contain about 50 per cent of
colouring matter, combined with more or less resin, and with earthy
matt
rs, consisting chiefly of carbonate and sulphate of lime and
silica.
Indian lake is rich, transparent, and deep,--less brilliant and more
durable than the colours of cochineal, but inferior in both respects to
those of madder. Used thickly or in strong glazing, as a shadow colour,
it is of great body and much permanence; but in thin glazing it changes
and flies, as it also does in tint with white lead. In the properties of
drying, &c., it resembles other lakes. The pigment may be dispensed with
in favour of madder lake and madder brown, whose combinations serve for
every purpose to which it can be applied, and are stable.
Lac appears to be the lake which has stood best in old pictures, and was
probably employed by the Venetians, who had the trade of India when
painting flourished at Venice.
TTITLE MADDER LAKES.