Dyeing Wool in Seventeenth-Century Germany
The Getty Research Institute
harbors an artisan’s recipe book for dyeing wool, ca. 1680, with
supplementary papers that date from 1653-1762. The book contains 135
leaves, it is illustrated, and it is written in German. What is
particularly interesting is its internal structure: this book is
arranged alphabetically by the names of colors, and it contains the
original samples of dyed wool. “Each section is ornamented by large
calligraphic initials and there are other watercolor devices and
drawings throughout. The first part of the volume contains recipes for
making grey, blue, yellow, orange, red, purple, brown and black, with
dyed samples of raw wool affixed by means of red sealing wax. The second
and third part of the volume contains recipes for dyeing felt and woven
wool cloth, with samples. The manual was probably used in a shop
producing and selling heavy woolen cloth for cloaks and overcoats.”[1]
Also contained in the volume is a recipe for black ink which will not
fade, 1682, and instructions on how to play the lute, with musical
scores included (there is a musical scholar interested in exactly this
question: when and where are musical scores integrated in recipe books?
Please do let us know about other examples). Miscellaneous papers
include an example of calligraphy, two bills for herbs used in dyeing,
1677, 1679, and genealogical papers and correspondence of the Brinck and
Zillessen families of Gladbach, 1762, who were still in the textile
dyeing business in 1908. The torn front page conveys the fragments of
the compiler’s name (“Abraham Dederix”) and the date (“Anno 1653”).
From the start of the book, a black raven
features in an elaborate, though amateurish illustration. This motif
accompanies the reader throughout the book, at some point turning into
an allegory of “autumn” (“Der Herbst”) itself, close to an instruction
on “How to dye ash color” possibly indicating an alchemical
interpretation of color generation and chromatic change that ranges
between black and white (fig. 2). This drawing is accompanied by a
depiction of two pilgrims wandering through a bleak landscape and an
inscription linking to the expectation of death and the day of the last
judgment (“Jüngste Tag”). The book itself is compiled “Zur Ehren deßen,
der da is […], und der dasein wird das alffa und omega, der anfang und
das Ende. Hosianna in excelsis“ („In honour of who is […] the alpha and
omega, the beginning and the end. Hosianna in excelsis”) (fig. 3).
An alphabetical register, cut into the
pages, structures the entries throughout, so that several pages remain
blank, while others convey not only detailed instructions on how to
achieve specific colors in wool dyeing but also contain original samples
– many of them have kept their original freshness, as can be seen in
the example of “How to achieve orange color” (“Vor Oranien zu farben”,
fig. 4).
hen
textiles are dyed for one, two, three or four hours respectively (fig.
5). Additional papers supply a list of herbs and plants used as
colorants, with their names listed both in German and in Latin. A
crucial next step in studying the manuscript would be to organize art
technological tests of the samples and then compare the results to the
information about the ingredients and chemical instructions provided by
the recipes themselves.All images in this post are taken from Getty Research Institute Library Manuscript 910012 ‘Artisan’s recipe book for dyeing wool, ca. 1680, and other papers, 1653-1762′ and are reproduced with kind permission from the Institute
