What Painting Is: How to Think about Oil Painting ... - Victoria Vesna

224 NOTES TO THE INTRODUCTION
2. Vladimír Karpenko, “The Chemistry and Metallurgy of
Transmutation,” Ambix 39 no. 2 (1992):47–62, especially 56–59.
3. From A Compendium of Alchemical Processes (York Beach, Maine:
Samuel Weiser; and Denington Estate, Wellingborough,
Northhamptonshire: Aquarian Press, 1981 [1894]), in the section
“Some Modern Alchemical Experiments,” 18–19.
4. This recipe is from Lawrence Principe (personal communication,
1991); I have altered his description slightly and added the
symbols. Mosaic gold is also called aurum musitum, aurum musicum,
and Porporina.
5. Principe adds: “Note: exercise extreme caution in carrying out this
process. Mercury and its compounds are all extremely poisonous.
Do not touch the mercury or mercury-tin alloy with bare hands.
The heating must be carried out in a fume hood, as toxic fumes are
released. Dispose of the broken glass safely, as mercury
compounds will be adhering to it.”
6. The Strassburg Manuscript: A Medieval Painter’s Handbook, translated
by Viola and Rosamund Borradaile, foreward by John Harthan
(London: Alec Tiranti, 1966), 27 and 95 n. 21, with a reference to
Cennino Cennini.
7. Jean [Jan]-Baptise Van Helmont, Ortus medicinœ (Amsterdam:
Ludovico Elzevir, 1648), quoted in Jacques Sadoul, Alchemists and
Gold, translated by O.Sieveking (London: Neville Spearman, 1972),
138–39. Ortus medicines appeared in English in Van Helmont’s
Works, translated by John Chandler (London: Printed for
Lodowick Lloyd, 1662).
8. Abraham von Frankenburg, Raphael oder Artzt-Engel (Amsterdam:
Jacob von Felsen, 1676), 45. Frankenburg is discussed in my
Domain of Images: The Art Historical Study of Visual Artifacts (Ithaca:
Cornell University Press, forthcoming).
9. Philalethes, “A Brief Guide to the Celestial Ruby,” op. cit., p. 249,
also quoted in John Read, Prelude to Chemistry, An Outline of
Alchemy, its Literature and Relationships (New York: MacMillan,
1937), 129.
10. The Philippine tree is Pterocarpus indica, Burmese rosewood.
D.J.Mabberly, The Plant Book (Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press, 1987). I thank Curtis Bohlen for this reference.
11. Lumen Novum Phosphoris Accensum (Amsterdam: Joannem
Oosterwyk, 1717), title page.
12. Johann Heinrich Schulze, Scotophorus pro phosphoro inventus, seu
experimentum curiosum de effectu radiorum solarium, Acta physicomedica
Academiæ Cæsareæ Leopoldino-Carolinæ naturæ
curiosum, vol. 1, obs. CCXXXIII (Nürnberg: Prostat in Officina
W.H. Endteriana, 1727), reprinted, with a German translation, in