I first learned about mummy brown a few years ago. I thought it had to be a urban tale. Nope. They really did grind up mummys and put them in tubes of artist paint. :eek:
Is there any revulsion for the art work? Are these paintings displayed in galleries? Legal to sell?
This is so macabre. How were they able to get the mummys out of Egypt and use them?
So fat mummys made bad paint. Who would have ever thunk that? <shudder>
My art teacher in high school, back in the 70s, said there was no brown like mummy brown. He called it Egyptian Brown though. He said it was the best paint ever and hated the fact he couldn’t get it any more. Anyway, he used to claim to shaped the tip of his brush with his lips, even when oil painting, and, with a devilish smile, even with Egyptian brown.
Article describes the mummy trade, use in medicines,drinks, and art.
Mmm, I guess he liked it better than Dracula Red or Frankenstein Green.
The link states that the pigment was erroneously believed to derive from the bitumen (coal tar) used to wrap the mummies. Possibly the pigment is from hemoglobin, which, after being converted to bile, is what gives feces its brown color. Rembrandt used feces for pigment.
I was going to mention the Pre-Raphaelity Brotherhood and the story of Edward Burne-Jones, but looks like the Wikipedia has it. This suggests they weren’t completely aware. Anyway, the picture there (Interior of a Kitchen) is in the Louvre as far as I can tell, so certainly not banned.
I don’t know how they took mummies out, can’t be that hard, or they could… grind them up first.
For your reading pleasure, the maybe apocryphal but creepy mellified man.