P-Leathr-Dyes-art

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P-Leathr-Dyes-art - 10/7/18

"Medieval Leather Dyes" by Lord Dafydd ap Alan. Class Handout.

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You can find more work by this author on his blog at:

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Medieval Leather Dyes

Class Handout

by Lord Dafydd ap Alan

16th Century woodcut showing a tanner at work by Jost Amman/Hans Sachs (1568)

Table of Contents

Introduction

Colouring Leather

Period Dye Recipes

Books

Colours

The Recipes

Annex 1 – Supplies

References

Introduction

In the SCA we regularly have the challenge of making our replicas as authentic as possible, given our current resources. One shortcut that is often taken by leatherworkers (due to cost, accessibility of materials etc.) is to use modern chrome-tanned leather or to dye vegetable tanned leather using modern dyes.

There is a common belief that many of the colours that we take for granted in modern leatherworking would not have been available to leatherworkers in period. However, there is significant evidence that medieval and renaissance leatherworkers would have had a variety of colours to choose from.

Colouring Leather

There are essentially two primary ways that coloured leather objects would have been achieved in period (aside from appliques or other ways of combining fabric with leather).

The first approach involves painting patterns onto the leather using artist's paints that would have been available in period.

The second, which is the focus of this class, is the dying of skins using period pigments.

Dying Leather

So far, I have found five independent period sources for leather dye recipes in the SCA period. In the manuals, the recipes for leather dyes are mixed with instructions on other related elements. The recipes are often mixed with dying instructions for other materials (such as linen, silk and even bone). In the case of the PLICTHO book (one of my main period sources for recipes), it also includes instructions on how to tan and prepare leather. Most of the dye recipes are intended for use with whole skins, and often produce enough dye to treat large numbers of skins.

The nature of these recipes, along with the types of information they are found with, suggest to me that the dying of leather may often have been done by either those who dye other materials (such as a dyers' guild perhaps?) or the leather tanners themselves. They would, in theory, then sell or trade the dyed leather to the leatherworker to make various items. From that perspective, this would be very similar to how many modern leatherworkers get coloured leather today.

Documenting leather dying using artwork is difficult because it is often hard to tell whether a specific object (for example, a pouch) depicted in a painting would have been made from fabric or coloured leather in life. As a result, there is little conclusive evidence from paintings. One example that I would argue is fairly suggestive is The Banker and his Wife by Marinus van Reymerswaele from the 16th century [1].

You can see in the bottom-right of the painting a stick purse. On the purse, the flaps of the pouch are various colours and the leather of the handle is also partially coloured. My research related to the stick- purse has found no evidence of these elements of a stick-purse being made from anything but leather. In addition, in PURSES IN PIECES, Goubitz also references the fact that the braided leather handle on the stick-purse at the Fries Museum was coloured - similar to what can be seen in this painting.

Books were items that frequently have been found with dyed leather covers. An example of this would be the St Cuthbert Gospel, which dates from the late 7th century. The Gospel, which you can see below, has a cover made from red goat skin, which has then been carved and decorated using other pigments. [2]

Of course, beyond the extant examples and paintings, we do have documentary evidence of leather dye recipes showing that leather dying was done in period.

Period Dye Recipes

Books

Here is a quick summary of each (please see the bibliography for full publishing details).

MAPPAE CLAVICULA – Originally dates anywhere from the 8th to 12th century Germany.

Segreti per Colori – Originally dates from the 15th century Italy.

THE PLICTHO OF GIOANVENTURA ROSETTI - Originally published in 1548 in Italy, this source has the largest collection of leather dye recipes of the five.

THE SECRETES OF THE REVEREND MAISTER ALEXIS OF PIEMONT – Originally published in various languages (likely that Italian was the original) in 1580.

A PROFITABLE BOOKE – Originally published in 1586, this is based on a Dutch source of dyeing recipes for a variety of materials including leather. Translation is based on the 1605 edition.

Colours

Based on these five period sources of leather dye recipes, the following list of colours appear to have been available to a certain degree in period. Blue, green, red and black look to be the most common consistently across all sources, but it also includes a good variety of other colours as well.

There are also two recipes, one for "peacock" and one for "green-purple", that are unclear as to what the exact colour would be. In addition, there is a group of recipes using something called Pandius. According to elizabethancostume.net, this is a compound pigment that can vary in colour depending on the exact mixture of components. [3]

One place to look for examples of what the period colours may have looked like is a leatherworker in the UK named Karl Robinson4. He uses recipes from one of my sources (PLICTHO). Here's an image from his web site of the colours he's been able to produce.

It is also important to note that some of these colours may have multiple variations and tones. For example, there are some blue recipes that are labelled "light blue" and others are called "azure". These could actually be very different colours. Similarly, different colours could be achieved by applying multiple coats of the same dye.

An example of this can be found in the Yale University travelling scriptorium5, which includes samples of dyed leathers typically used in period bookbinding. One of the sample sheets is using brazilwood as the main pigment, which is one of the primary red pigments found in my recipes. The sample sheet, which you can find below, is as an example of what the period colours may have looked like. As you can see, different tones can be achieved depending on your materials and technique.

You'll also notice the red on the goat skin is very similar to the one achieved by Karl Robinson.

The Recipes

I'm going to organize this section by colour. I've only tried a handful of the recipes in the five sources, so feel free to experiment with others. I also did smaller batches than the recipe suggests for my experiments so feel free to scale down or up according to how much leather you want to dye. Note that the original recipes from the PLICTHO are reproduced with permission from the publisher.

Yellow

My successful yellow recipe is based on recipe 207 in the PLICTHO using curcuma (more modernly known as turmeric). Here' the original text:

Ingredients:

· 1 1⁄4 oz turmeric

· 2 oz alum

· 0.375 gallons (approx. 2 L) purified water

The recipe is fairly straightforward except for the use of the mezzette as a liquid unit of measurement for the water. Based on a 19th century reference, I've inferred that 1 mezzette = 0.15 gallons, so you'll need just over two litres for a full batch of the recipe. I used purified water from the pharmacy (rather than tap or regular bottled water) to eliminate any mineral contaminants.

I added all of the ingredients into the pot, mixed it up and let it boil until it had reduced by a third (about 20-25 minutes). If I had used a bigger pot I probably could have done it faster, but it created a lot of foam and was in danger of boiling over, so I had to turn the heat down to a low simmer.

The recipe seemed to suggest that the mixture should be applied to the leather while it was still hot. This seemed unusual to me so I did one square of leather while the mixture was still hot and then did a second square the next morning after it had cooled. There is only a slight difference in colour between the two (the cold-applied dye was a bit darker).

In the following picture, the left is the cold-applied dye. On the right is the hot applied dye. The bottom is the original colour of the leather to show the contrast.

The colour itself seems to be fairly well applied; it doesn't wipe off particularly easily and seems fairly stable.

Green

I'm using recipe 163 from the PLICTHO for this dye. Here's the recipe:

Ingredients:

Note: I was less precise with this recipe as it depends on how many berries you're using and the size of your pot

· Ripe Buckthorn berries (dried or fresh) (about 1⁄4 cup)

· Strong white vinegar (I used cleaning vinegar from the grocery store)

· Alum

Your process here will depend on whether you have dried or fresh berries.

With the dried berries, I soaked the berries in tap water overnight to re-hydrate them. I then put the berries in a pot with a bit of alum, covered them with vinegar and boiled them. One oddity about this recipe is that it uses paternosters as a measurement of time (as in boil the mixture for the time it takes to say six paternosters). Based on the length of text and normal speaking rhythms, I have guesstimated that it takes 1-2 minutes to say a paternoster.

Once it had boiled I poured the dye into a jar and let it cool. I applied two coats of colour on both sides of the leather and let it dry before applying a coat of olive oil.

Note: I did two samples, one with the leather untreated (other than using a de-glazer to remove any surface finishes and dirt) and one pre-soaked in alum water to see if it would help bind the dye to the leather.

Both pieces turned out a yellowish colour with a hint of green. Applying a coat of olive oil darkened both pieces a bit. They definitely have a green tinge to them, but are in the yellow/brown tones.

The alum treated leather was much stiffer but otherwise I didn't notice much difference in colour or colour fastness.

With fresh berries, the process is similar but instead of soaking the berries, you muddle and crush them a bit before adding them to the pot to help extract the juice. The picture below shows the difference. The colour is a much truer green, but that could be related to the ripeness of the fresh versus dried berries. The top left is the fresh berry sample while the bottom two are my dried berry attempts.

For comparison, here is the ripe buckthorn dye sample sheet from the Yale scriptorium (using a different recipe). Both my first and second attempts fit into the colour ranges on this sheet.

Black

I'm basing my black leather dye on recipe 168 from the PLICTHO.

Here's the original text:

Ingredients:

· Handful of nails or other iron

· Vinegar (enough to cover the nails in the jar)

· Gallnut extract dissolved in water (optional)

The recipe calls for you to boil rusted iron in vinegar for hours. Instead, I've left rusted nails soaking in vinegar for several weeks since the boiling would really just speed up the process of dissolving the iron oxide into the liquid.

The recipe calls for pre-treating the leather with a gallnut solution to add tannins to the leather (that's what reacts with the iron to turn black). Modern veg-tan already includes tannins as part of the tanning process, so it will turn black anyway. As an experiment, I've tried with and without added gallnut to see how the black compares.

To make the gallnut-treated leather, I took gallnut extract used by dyers and dissolved as much as I could into boiling water. Since I'm using the extract rather than the actual ground gallnuts, I only boiled it for about 15 minutes instead of the full hour. I then painted it on the leather and let it dry before applying the vinegar/iron solution.

As you can see from the picture below, both the gallnut and non-gallnut pieces turned out very similar. The piece on the left is the non-treated piece, and the piece on the right is the one pre-treated with the gallnut solution. Using just a single treatment of the vinegar/iron solution, the gallnut-treated leather is a bit darker but not significantly so once an oil coating is applied.

The gall solution is also significantly messier, and rubs off a fair bit because the blackening reaction is happening between the two liquids that were applied to the leather, rather than with the leather itself. I think that's also why it has a bit of a glossier finish.

Interestingly, the gall solution version could work with other non-veg-tan leathers that were available in period, such as alum-tawed and oil-tanned. This is relevant given that many of the PLICTHO recipes were designed for alum-tawed leather. In the future I plan to experiment with this to see how it reacts.

Blue

This colour has been less successful. I've tried five different variations based on two different recipes (Recipe 200 from PLICTHO using indigo, water and gum arabic and Recipe 336 from SEGRETI using indigo and strong vinegar).

Here's the original text form the PLICTHO:

And for the SEGRETI:

336. To dye skins blue. --Take for each skin 1 oz. of indigo, and grind it well with strong vinegar, and to each ounce of indigo take one foglietta of vinegar, and dip a paintbrush or a hare's foot into it, and lay it upon the skins, and dry them in the shade. Then give them a second coat, and let them dry, and they will be very beautiful. And if you boil the vinegar a little with the indigo, the skin will be of a much brighter and fuller colour.

With all five attempts, the recipe produced a dark blue colour, but in all cases it did not adhere properly to the leather.

As an experiment, I also tried applying the dye to two other kinds of leather. When applied to oil-tan chamois, it stuck to the rough leather extremely well and created an almost black coating that didn't rub off. When applied to alum-tawed leather, it also stuck to the leather much better, although the white leather showed through much more than otherwise. It also gave a lovely blue colour on the sueded side of the leather.

Top left is the dyed veg-tan.

Bottom left is the alum-tawed (sueded side).

Middle is the oil-tan chamois.

The introduction to the Plictho suggests that many of the recipes were intended to be used with alum- tawed leather. It would appear that these blue recipes may be examples of those that might only work with that type of leather, given the results with the veg-tan are so poor compared to the alum-tawed and oil-tanned samples.

Of course, it's also possible that there are differences in the modern materials I am using (chemical differences in modern vs. period veg-tan, or in the indigo itself perhaps?).

There are many blue dye recipes in the period sources, most of which use stronger chemicals (like lye). This would be more like the process used to dye fabric with indigo, so may work better. Further experiments are needed.

Red

This recipe has been a partial success. I'm using recipe 162 from PLICTHO. Here's the period recipe:

Ingredients:

· 0.6625 L purified water

· 1 oz ground brazilwood powder

· Approx 1⁄4 tsp gum Arabic powder (not the liquid art supply stuff)

The recipe was a bit hard to understand so I am making some guesses. This required another bit of translation for the period measurement. This time the recipe used a quarti. Based on a post-period reference, I'm working on the assumption that a quarti = 0.6625 litres or 663 mL.

I put the brazilwood in a little bit of water, essentially allowing it to "bloom". After my three attempts at the recipe, I have concluded that the longer I let it bloom, the better the dye worked. After it had bloomed, I added the additional water, the gum Arabic and boiled it as per the instructions.

Once the dye was made, I pre-treated the leather with an alum-wash to replicate the period leather that is described in the recipe (needing to soak the leather in clear water to wash out the alum and oil) and then applied the dye and a coating of olive oil (once the dye had dried).

Here are the results:

The piece on the top left is the fully dried red (more of a terracotta). The piece on the bottom left is the colour when it is partially dried (approximately 8 hours).

Since this recipe doesn't specify the type of leather use, it's also possible this red is designed to work better with alum tawed leather.

Annex 1 – Supplies

Some of my supplies were bought locally in Ottawa, others we're ordered online. Here's a quick list of some places to look.

Online Sources

Many of the supplies you'll need are also used for fabric dying and other work with pigments, so retailers that target those industries are your best bet for supplies. Here are the online stores I've used with good success, although I'm sure there are others. You could also talk to people who do fabric dying and see where they get their supplies.

Keep in mind that many dying supply stories sell extracts, which may behave differently than the original material when using a period recipe. It can work but you may need to experiment (for example, using buckthorn extract would be a different process than boiling the original berries from scratch).

Maiwa Handprints - http://www.maiwa.com

This is an art store in Vancouver that also carries supplies for fabric dying and paints. Since they are Canadian – there's no duty charged and their prices are in Canadian. I've had great success ordering from them, highly recommend. They don't carry everything but I get what I can from them, and top up at the next listing.

Kremer Pigments - http://www.kremerpigments.com

These guys are in New York City and are pretty hardcore. They seem to serve the artistic and industrial sector, so they carry all kinds of things. I tend to order my harder to find stuff from here, like the dried buckthorn berries and gum Arabic. Haven't had any problems with getting things shipped but keep in mind the US shipping and currency conversion can bump up the prices from what's listed.

References

Online

· "16th Century Leather Dyeing." Karl Robinson - Leather Worker. N.p., n.d. Web. 21 Oct. 2013. http://www.karlrobinson.co.uk/leather_dyeing.php.

· "A Handbook for Travellers in Central Italy: Including Lucca, Tuscany, Florence, the Marches ... : John Murray (Firm). : Free Download & Streaming : Internet Archive." Internet Archive: Digital Library of Free Books, Movies, Music & Wayback Machine. N.p., n.d. Web. 21 Oct. 2013. http://archive.org/details/ahandbookfortra00firgoog.

· "A Profitable Book of cleaning & dyeing recipes." Elizabethan Costuming Page. N.p., n.d. Web. 27 Dec. 2013. http://www.elizabethancostume.net/dyes/profitable.html.

· Blunt, Joseph. "The Shipmaster's Assistant, and Commercial Digest: Containing Information ... - Joseph Blunt - Google Books." Google Books. N.p., n.d. Web. 21 Oct. 2013. http://books.google.ca/books?id=cDkSAAAAYAAJ&;pg=PA441&lpg=PA441&dq=%22quarti%22+ measurement&source=bl&ots=uU7D9ReK4F&sig=aFQbsPu_HqFnfbe7NK_ySfhCwjQ&hl=en&sa =X&ei=4o9RUtmPJ7jG4AOGioD4Dg&ved=0CFgQ6AEwCTgK#v=onepage&q=%22quarti%22%20 measurement&f=false.

· Breay, Claire . "The St Cuthbert Gospel ." British Library. The British Library Board , n.d. Web. 21 Oct. 2013. www.bl.uk/whatson/st_cuthbert_gospel.pdf.

· "Dye & Cleaning recipes from the Secrets of Alexis." Elizabethan Costuming Page. N.p., n.d. Web. 15 Oct. 2013. http://www.elizabethancostume.net/dyes/alexis.html.

· "Dye Recipes from the Mappae Clavicula." Elizabethan Costuming Page. N.p., n.d. Web. 15 Oct. 2013. http://www.elizabethancostume.net/dyes/mappae.html.

· Goubitz, Olaf. Purses in pieces: archaeological finds of late medieval and 16th-century leather purses, pouches, bags, and cases in the Netherlands. Zwolle: Stichting Promotie Archeologie, 2007.

Print.

· "Leather and Parchment Samples | Traveling Scriptorium." Traveling Scriptorium | A Teaching Kit by the

· Yale University Library. N.p., n.d. Web. 21 Oct. 2013.

· http://travelingscriptorium.library.yale.edu/binding-models/leather-and-parchment-samples/. "Marinus van Reymerswale - The Banker and His Wife - WGA19323.jpg - Wikimedia Commons."

· Wikimedia Commons. N.p., n.d. Web. 21 Oct. 2013. http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Marinus_van_Reymerswale_- _The_Banker_and_His_Wife_-_WGA19323.jpg.

· "Painted finishes | The Reverend's Big Blog of Leather." The Reverend's Big Blog of Leather | DIY medieval and early modern leatherwork. N.p., n.d. Web. 21 Oct. 2013. http://leatherworkingreverend.wordpress.com/2009/09/15/painted-finishes/.

· Rosetti, Gioanventura, and Sidney M. Edelstein. The plictho of Gioanventura Rosetti: instructions in the art of the dyers which teaches the dyeing of woolen cloths, linens, cottons, and silk by the great art as well as by the common.. [1st ed. Cambridge (Mass.): M.I.T. Press, 1969. Print.

· "The Case for the Imperial Crown." Kunsthistorisches Museum. N.p., n.d. Web. 21 Oct. 2013. http://bilddatenbank.khm.at/viewArtefact?id=100456.

· "Segreti per Colori." Elizabethan Costuming Page. N.p., n.d. Web. 15 Oct. 2013. http://www.elizabethancostume.net/dyes/segreti.htm.

Footnotes

[1] http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Marinus_van_Reymerswale_-_The_Banker_and_His_Wife_- _WGA19323.jpg

[2] http://www.bl.uk/whatson/st_cuthbert_gospel.pdf

[3] http://www.elizabethancostume.net/dyes/mappae.html#235

[4] http://www.karlrobinson.co.uk/leather_dyeing.php

[5] http://travelingscriptorium.library.yale.edu/binding-models/leather-and-parchment-samples/

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Copyright 2018 by David Gotlieb. <dafydd at rogers.com>. Permission is granted for republication in SCA-related publications, provided the author is credited. Addresses change, but a reasonable attempt should be made to ensure that the author is notified of the publication and if possible receives a copy.

If this article is reprinted in a publication, please place a notice in the publication that you found this article in the Florilegium. I would also appreciate an email to myself, so that I can track which articles are being reprinted. Thanks. -Stefan.