An early modern color guide

As I was answering a reference question yesterday relating to heraldic funeral processions in Folger MS V.a.447—a heraldic miscellany written by John Guillim shortly after he was made Portsmouth Pursuivant of Arms—my eyes snagged on a subsection near the end titled, “The names of all Coloures pertaining to Lymminge.”

Detail from Folger MS V.a.447, leaf 47r.

The list of names immediately made me think of the colors that J. Crew and other clothing companies come up with each season (see this recent Huffington Post article) or the thousands of nearly-identical interior paint hues at Home Depot and Lowes, each with a unique name: sangria, ballet slipper, arctic, etc. These names are descriptive and confounding at the same time, requiring an image or a description to truly make sense. In early modern Europe, the names mostly relate to pigments, minerals, and place of origin, but even these names can be evocative and mysterious, such as ultramarine (a brilliant blue that comes from beyond the seas), [black]smith’s coal, and Spanish brown. And then there’s sanguis draconis, or dragon’s blood, a blood-red resin used mostly for medicinal purposes but listed here by Guillim.

So, here for your amusement is a 400-year-old list of colors used for limning (that is, painting with watercolor-type paint). Many of these colors appear in Henry Peacham’s The art of drawing (London, 1606) and in an earlier anonymous treatise, A very proper treatise, wherein is briefly sett forthe the arte of limming (London, 1573), but not all of them. Guillim’s list of colors is on the left of the page shown, and transcribed below. (On the right of the page is a list of the primary gums that were ground with some of the colors (others were strained): gum armoniac, gum hedera, gum lake, and gum arabic.)

List of colors for limning in Folger MS V.a.447, leaf 47v. (click to enlarge)

Blewes: Vltra marine, Blewe byce, Smalte, Litmose, Inde blewe, English Inde, florye
Greenes: Severe greene, Greene byce, Verditer, Verdigrece, Sape greene, flowrdeluce greene
Yellowes: Masticot, Orpiment, Generall, Saffron, Berry yellow, Oker de Rowse, or Spanish ocker
Reddes: Vermilion, Redleade, Synaper lake, Roset, Synaper Toppes
Sangwines: Sanguis Draconis, Turnsole
Brownes: Spanish browne, Bole Armoriak, Oker burnte
Whites: Ceruse white, White leade, Spanish white, Chalke
[Blacks]: Lampblacke, Smythes Cole, Cherry stone, Blacke Chalke

Not only does Guillim list the colors, but he describes their composition in the pages following his list. For example, he provides detailed instructions on the gathering and processing of lillies to make the color “fleur de lis green,” as pictured and transcribed below:

To make fflowrdeluce greene. Folger MS V.a.447, leaf 49r.

Gather your fflorredeluces ffortnight before mydsummer & havinge
a faire glasse in redynesse gather your flowres when the
deawe is of them, & that the svnne hath somwhat bleached
Then take the blewe leaves & purple leaves & nippe
it from the stalke, takinge no parte of the flowre, but
only of the fairest of the blewe & of the purple. Let your
glasse be wyde mowthed, & put your fflowres therinto
Lett your fflowres be full blown before you gather them
gatheringe asmany as you can get, for many of them make
but a little Color. You must stoppe your glasse contynually very
close settinge it in a shadowe place, lest the force of the
Sune drye vp the moisture therof. And so keepinge them
fast stopped let them consvme & rotte tyll they become water
& the liquor a darke greene. Then strayne it through in lynen
clothe.

On another page, he provides further instructions for tempering the fleur de lis green after it has been prepared: use fair water, rather than gum water.

As a pursuivant, John Guillim would have had a strong interest in knowing how to make the colors for blazoning coats of arms. This image from a ca. 1590 armorial (Folger MS V.b.74, leaf 201r) illustrates the colors used in coats of arms in early modern England:

Armorial of English Families, ca. 1590. Folger MS V.b.74, leaf 201r.

But some of the colors are not true heraldic colors, and I assume he would have been interested in them for illustrating pedigrees and decorating the elaborate borders of grants of arms, such as the one below.

Grant of arms from Clarenceux King of Arms to Edward Lyster, Esq., doctor of physick of London, 1602 April 20. Folger MS Z.c.22 (1).

I’m imagining cherry stone black leggings with a turnsole sweater, and an accent wall in the living room of berry yellow…