been very pious in his resignation, for his
reward was a prison in his old age. Cennino acquaints us how to make and
prepare pannels, cloth-grounds, cements, and glues; and doubtless some
of his recipes will be found practically useful. For temperas (vehicles)
many recipes are given. There are two kinds of egg tempera deserving
attention mentioned, and the practice of painting in the egg tempera,
and afterwards glazing in oil-colour. The translator particularly
recommends in a note this mode of painting, and quotes from Mr Field's
Chromatography the following passage:--"Mr Clover has successfully
employed the yolk of egg for sketching in body colours, in the manner
and with the entire effect of oil, which sketches being varnished have
retained their original purity of hue, more especially in the whites,
and flexibility of texture, without a crack, after many years in a
London atmosphere." The translator recommends it from her own practice
and experience.

We have ourselves, in this Magazine, on a former occasion, spoken of a
sort of distemper painting--though to give it that name is not very
highly to recommend it. We have, nevertheless, found it very good, and
admirably adapted for getting in a subject, as affording means of great
rapidity of execution. We allude to the admixture of starch and oil--the
less oil the more like distemper will it be; or, we should rather say,
fresco, which it much more resembles; but oil may be used with it in any
proportion. The starch should be made as for domestic use, with water
saturated with borax, and the oil added by degrees, and the whole
stirred up together while warm; and, in this medium, the colours should
be ground as well as worked. It is curious that here, too, the borax is
of use; for it not only enables the oil to mix with the water of the
starch, but it gives the starch a consistence and toughness, which
without it it never possesses. We have found colours retain their hue
and purity remarkably well with this vehicle. The whole bears out
equally, but without shining. The second painting may produce any
desired richness. It is not unpleasant to paint upon a wet ground made
with this vehicle, when the picture and ground will dry and harden
together.

There is no colour concerning which we are more at a loss in looking at
old pictures, than the blues. Three are mentioned by Cennino--indigo, a
cobalt, and ultramarine. With regard to the sparing use of the latter,
as the mo