I have thus endeavoured to bring together what is to be known historically of the mechanical part of painting. Dry and wet plaster, that is, distemper and fresco, have been employed in all countries, from Egypt to Mexico, for grounds. Pannel, prepared with a thin coat of chalk or plaster and size, has been the next general material. The painted inner mummy cases, where the linen was prepared with plaster, are the earliest pictures on linen, so far as we can judge. The linen painted hangings for prize fighters, and Nero’s famous canvas, show that the practice of painting pictures on linen was not unknown to the ancients; but when it was first used as a ground, or if its use ever became general until modern times, we do not know. The early Italian painters used it at first to strengthen and smooth their pannel; and, I think, the Venetian painters were they who rendered its use general. The most important pigments of the ancients appear to have been identical with our own. The vehicles for colour have afforded matter for very needless controversy. The ancients generally used water, gums, and white of egg; they frequently, especially in the later schools of painting, used wax, often mixed with oil of some kind. They were acquainted with the use of oil as a varnish, and may have used both it and naphtha to paint with occasionally. As early as the tenth century, oil was often used for particular kinds of painting; by the fourteenth, attempts were made (I need not say, without success) to paint with it on plaster; by the end of the fifteenth century, it had pretty well superseded other vehicles for all but fresco and distemper upon walls. As to the tools, a palette, colour box, soft and hard brushes, scrapers, &c., of forms and materials differing but little, with a sponge and pumice stone, were used by all; and very few required more, when their pigments were once prepared. But the ancient painters, like the old Italians and Germans, had their colours ground in their own work-rooms: for this purpose, slabs of porphyry, or some other hard stone, with mullers to correspond; mortars of marble, or brass, or iron, with pestles of wood or metal, were requisite; and, in some cases, the very furnaces for calcining their ochres, or dissolving their gums, were of their own construction. Hence the frequent mention of apprentice boys, who never reached higher in the art than colour-grinders. Others became mere mechanical copyists, multiplying in ancient times the actual patterns of certain gods and heroes, and in later times, favourite saints, or even whole compositions. But the better sort either equalled or excelled their masters. Apelles surpassed Pamphilus, Giotto excelled Cimabue, Raffaelle and Michael Angelo left their masters Perugino and Ghirlandaio far behind. FOOTNOTES: