Mummy brown, also called Egyptian brown, is a rich brown bituminous pigment, intermediate in tint between

burnt umber Umber is a natural brown earth pigment that contains iron oxide and manganese oxide. In its natural form, it is called raw umber. When calcined, the color becomes warmer and it becomes known as burnt umber. Its name derives from ''terra d'ombr ...

and

raw umber Umber is a natural brown earth pigment that contains iron oxide and manganese oxide. In its natural form, it is called raw umber. When calcined, the color becomes warmer and it becomes known as burnt umber. Its name derives from ''terra d'ombra ...

, and was one of the favourite colours of the

Pre-Raphaelite The Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood (later known as the Pre-Raphaelites) was a group of English painters, poets, and art critics, founded in 1848 by William Holman Hunt, John Everett Millais, Dante Gabriel Rossetti, William Michael Rossetti, James ...

History

Mummy brown was originally made in the 16th and 17th centuries from white pitch,

myrrh Myrrh (; from Semitic, but see '' § Etymology'') is a gum-resin extracted from a number of small, thorny tree species of the genus ''Commiphora''. Myrrh resin has been used throughout history as a perfume, incense and medicine. Myrrh mi ...

, and the ground-up remains of ancient Egyptian

mummies A mummy is a dead human or an animal whose soft tissues and organs have been preserved by either intentional or accidental exposure to chemicals, extreme cold, very low humidity, or lack of air, so that the recovered body does not decay furth ...

(both human and feline), but also Guanche mummies of

Canary Islands The Canary Islands (; es, Canarias, ), also known informally as the Canaries, are a Spanish autonomous community and archipelago in the Atlantic Ocean, in Macaronesia. At their closest point to the African mainland, they are west of Morocc ...

. As it had good transparency, it could be used for glazes, shadows, flesh tones and shading.McCouat, Philip
"The life and death of Mummy Brown"
, ''Journal of Art in Society'' However, in addition to its tendency to crack, it was extremely variable in its composition and quality, and since it contained

ammonia Ammonia is an inorganic compound of nitrogen and hydrogen with the formula . A stable binary hydride, and the simplest pnictogen hydride, ammonia is a colourless gas with a distinct pungent smell. Biologically, it is a common nitrogenous was ...

and particles of fat, was likely to affect other colours with which it was used. Historically, demand for mummy brown sometimes outstripped the available supply of true Egyptian mummies, leading to occasional substitution of contemporary corpses of slaves or criminals. In 1564, a mummy seller in Alexandria displayed forty specimens he claimed to have manufactured himself. Mummy brown began to fall from popularity during the late 19th century when its composition became more generally known to artists. The Pre-Raphaelite artist Edward Burne-Jones was reported to have ceremonially buried his tube of mummy brown in his garden when he discovered its true origins. By 1915, demand for mummy brown had slowed so much that one London colourman claimed that he could satisfy the demands of his customers for twenty years from one Egyptian mummy. By the start of the 20th century, mummy brown had largely ceased production in its traditional form, owing to a continued decline in the supply of available mummies as well as a significant drop in demand.

Present day

The modern pigment sold as "mummy brown" is composed of a mixture of

kaolin Kaolinite ( ) is a clay mineral, with the chemical composition Al2 Si2 O5( OH)4. It is an important industrial mineral. It is a layered silicate mineral, with one tetrahedral sheet of silica () linked through oxygen atoms to one octahedral ...

quartz Quartz is a hard, crystalline mineral composed of silica (silicon dioxide). The atoms are linked in a continuous framework of SiO4 silicon-oxygen tetrahedra, with each oxygen being shared between two tetrahedra, giving an overall chemical form ...

, goethite, and

hematite Hematite (), also spelled as haematite, is a common iron oxide compound with the formula, Fe2O3 and is widely found in rocks and soils. Hematite crystals belong to the rhombohedral lattice system which is designated the alpha polymorph of . ...

, with the hematite and goethite (generally 60% of the content) determining the colour – the more hematite the redder the pigment – and the others being inert substances that can vary the opacity or tinting strength. The colour of mummy brown can vary from yellow to red to dark violet, the latter usually called "mummy violet".

Notes

References

* * *{{ISBN? Iron oxide pigments Pigments Shades of brown Mummies

History

Present day

See also

Notes

References