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PROLEGOMENA AND GENERAL INTRODUCTION TO THE BOOK ON PAINTING

good shadow for blue in oil painting.

627.

Grind verdigris many times coloured with lemon juice and keep it away from yellow (?).

Of preparing the panel.

628.

TO PREPARE A PANEL FOR PAINTING ON.

The panel should be cypress or pear or service-tree or walnut. You must coat it over with mastic and turpentine twice distilled and white or, if you like, lime, and put it in a frame so that it may expand and shrink according to its moisture and dryness. Then give it [a coat] of aqua vitae in which you have dissolved arsenic or [corrosive] sublimate, 2 or 3 times. Then apply boiled linseed oil in such a way as that it may penetrate every part, and before it is cold rub it well with a cloth to dry it. Over this apply liquid varnish and white with a stick, then wash it with urine when

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