Secrets of Glass Manufactory - Compositions to Imitate Precious Stones, called French Paste

Secrets Concerning Colors and Painting
§ I.  Paint In Varnish On Wood
§ 2. Paint On Paper
§ 3. Compositions For Limners
§ 4. Make Transparent Color
§ 5. Compositions to Dye Leather
§ 6. Color or Varnish Copperplate Prints
§ 7. For Painting on Glass
§ 8. Color Preparation for Oil, Water, and Crayon
       Marble and Jasper Paper
       Methods to Clean Paintings
       Making Good Crayons
       Directions for Coloring Prints
       Directions for Painting in Oil
§ 9.  Preparation of Lapis Lazuli to Make Ultramarine

LXX.  To clean pictures.

    Take the picture out of its frame.  Lay a clean towel on it, which for the space of ten, fourteen, or eighteen days, according as you find it necessary, you keep continually wetting, till it has entirely drawn out all the filthiness from the picture.  Then, with the tip of your finger, pass some linseed oil, which has been set a long while in the sun to purify it, and the picture will become as fine as new.

LXXI.  Another for the same purpose.

    Put into two quarts of the oldest lye one quarter of a pound of Genoa soap, rasped very fine, with about a pint of spirit of wine, and boil all together on the fire.  Strain it through a cloth and let it cool,  Then with a brush dipped in that composition, rub the picture all over, and let it fry.  Do the same again once more, and let it dry too.  When dry, dip a little cotton in oil of nut, and pass it over all the picture.  Let this dry again; and, afterwards, warm a cloth, with which rib the picture well over, and it will be as fine as just out of the painter's hands.

LXXII.  A secret to render old pictures as fine as new.

    Boil in a new pipkin, for the space of a quarter of an hour one quarter of a pound of gray of Bril-ash, and a little Genoa soap.  Let it cool to a lukewarm, and wash your picture with it, then wipe it.  Pass some olive oil on it, and then wipe it off again.  This will make it just as fine as new.

LXXIII.  An oil to prevent pictures from blackening.  It may serve also to make cloth to carry in the pocket against wet weather.

    Put some nut or linseed oil in a phial, and set in the sun to purify it.  When it has deposited its dregs at the bottom, decant it gently into another clean phial, and set it again in the sun as before.  Continue so doing, till it drops no more faeces at all.  And with that oil, you make the above composition.

LXXIV.  A wash to clean pictures.

    Make a lye with clear water and wood ashes; in this dip a sponge, and rub the picture over, and it will cleanse it perfectly.  The same may be done with chamber-lye only; or otherwise, with white wine, and it will have the same effect.

LXXV.  A very curious and simple way of preventing flies from sitting on pictures. or any other furniture, and making their dung there.

    Let a large bunch of leeks soak for five or six days in a pail full of water, and wash your picture, or any other piece of furniture, with it.  The flies will never come near any thing so washed.  This secret is very important and well experienced.

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