Domestic Encyclopædia (1802)/Marbling

MARBLING, the art of painting or disposing colours, in such a manner as to imitate marble.

There are several kinds of marbled paper, which vary only in the forms or figures of colouring: some are dotted; others drawn in irregular lines; but the method of tinging them, simply consists in dipping the paper in a thick solution of gum tragacanth, over which the colours are uniformly spread, after having been ground with ox-gall, and spirit of wine.

The paper must first be immersed in clear water, the sheets regularly folded over each other, and covered with a weight. It is now to be carefully laid on the colouring solution, and pressed softly with the hand, that it may bear equally on the whole. Next, it must be suspended in order to dry; and, as soon as the moisture is evaporated, the paper is polished by rubbing it with a little soap, and smoothing it either with glass highly burnished, or with a polished agate.

The colours usually employed for red, are, carmine, lake, or vermillion;—for yellow, Dutch-pink and yellow ochre;—for blue, Prussian-blue and verditer;—for green, verdigrease, a mixture of Dutch-pink, and Prussian-blue, in various proportions;—for orange, the orange-lake, or a composition of vermilion, or red-lead, with Dutch-pink:—and lastly, for purple, rose-pink and Prussian-blue.

These different colours are first to be finely triturated with spirit of wine, when a small proportion of gall is to be added, and the grinding of the whole repeated. The proper quantity of gall can be easily ascertained by comparative trials; because there must be only such a proportion of it used, as will suffer the spots of the various tinging matters to unite, when sprinkled on the solution of tragacanth, without intermixing, or running into each other.—The whole being thus prepared, the solution is to be poured into different vessels, according to the colours employed, which are to be sprinkled on the surface; and the process of marbling is completed by laying the paper on the mixture, in the manner above directed.