The Artist's Assistant, In the Study and Practice of Mechanical Sciences: Calculated for the Improvement of Genius. Illustrated with Copper-Plates (Birmingham, [ca. 1785])

THE ARTIST'S ASSISTANT. 225

This is the bed method hitherto praftifed ; for
the japanners gold fize binds the powders to the
ground, without the lead hazard of peeling or falling
off. which is liable to happen when the gum water,
glovers, or ifmglafs fizes are ufed; though, notwith-
standing the authority of the o\} pra&ice for the
contrary, even thefe cements willin-uch better fecure
them, when they are laid on the, ground, and the
powders rubbed over them, than when both are mixed
together, and the effeQ;, particularly of the aurum
mofaicum, will be much better in this way than the
other. The gold fize fhould be fuffered, in this cafe,
to approach much nearer to drynefs than is proper
in the cafe of gilding with leaf gold, as the powders
would otherwile be rubbed againlt it in the laying
them on.

The fiVlitious filver powder, called the argentum
mufivum, may, as abovementioned, be applied in the
manner of bronze, by thofe whofe caprice difpofes
them to filver figures or bufts ; but it is the only
fort of filver powder that fhould be ufed in this way,
for the reafon above given ; and all fuch kind of fil-
vering is much better omitted ; for the whitenefs
itfelf of plailler in figures or bulls, and much more a
fhining whitenefs, is injurious to their right eifefr,
by its eluding the judgment of the eye, with refpeel
to the proper form and proportion of the parts, from
the falls and pointed reflections of the lights, and
the too faint force of the fhades. To remove which
inconvenience it is probable was the firfh inducement
to bronzin?,