This art is nothing but a species of painting, but far from being of
the most delicate kind. The principal ingredients made use of in it
are the true gold powder, the German gold, the aurum mosaicum, and
copper powder, (all above described.) The choice of these powders
is, of course, to be determined by the degree of brilliancy you wish
to obtain. The powder is mixed with strong gum water or isinglass,
and laid on with a brush or pencil; and when not so dry as to have
still a certain clamminess, a piece of soft leather wrapped round
the finger, is dipped in the powder and rubbed over the work; when
the work has been all covered with the bronze, it must be left to
dry, and any loose powder then cleared away by a hair pencil.


180. BRONZING IN WOOD

This may be effected by a process somewhat differing from the above,
Prussian blue, patent yellow, raw amber, lamp-black, and pipe clay
are ground separately with water on a stone, and as much of them as
will make a good colour put into a small vessel three-fourths full
of size. This mixture is found to succeed best on using about half
as much more pipe clay as of any of the other ingredients. The wood
being previously cleaned and smoothed, and coated with a mixture of
clean size and lamp-black, receives a new coating with the above
compound twice successively, having allowed the first to dry.
Afterwards the bronze powder is to be laid on with a pencil, and the
whole burnished or cleaned anew, observing to repair the parts which
may be injured by this operation; next, the work must be coated over
with a thin lather of castile soap, which will take off the glare of
the burnishing, and afterwards be carefully rubbed with a woollen