131 KERMES AND COCHINEAL; WOAD AND INDIGO. REPERCUSSIONS OF THE DISCOVERY OF THE NEW WORLD IN THE WORKSHOPS OF EUROPEAN PAINTERS AND DYERS IN THE MODERN AGE Mª Luisa Vázquez de Ágredos Pascual1, María Teresa Doménech Carbó1, Dolores Julia Yusá-Marco1, Sofía Vicente Palomino2 and Laura Fuster López3 Instituto Universitario de Restauración del Patrimonio de la Universidad Politécnica de Valencia 1Laboratorio de análisis físico-químico y control medioambiental de Obras de Arte 2Taller de materiales arqueológicos y etnográficos 3Taller de análisis y actuación en pintura de caballete y retablos CONTACT AUTHOR: Mª Luisa Vázquez de Ágredos Pascual, [email protected] ABSTRACT: Kermes and woad were two of the most important colourings employed in Europe for painting and dyeing in parti- cular from very early times. The discovery in the first half of the twentieth century of traces of kermes in the Couches-du-Rhone cave in the south of Provence (France) dates the knowledge and use of this colouring back to the Neolithic period, coinciding with the start of agriculture, the domestication of animals and the sedentarisation of man. There is similarly no doubt that woad was highly appreciated and widely employed as a colouring and pigment in all ancient Mediterranean cultures and was, indeed, commented upon by various Roman historians such as Vitruvius (1st c. BC), Pliny the Elder (1st c. BC) and Dioscorides (1st c. AD). During the Classical Period and the Middle Ages the use of these dyes was combined with others which provided the same colours in acceptable or even superior qualities, as was the case of the native indigo or the carmine that reached the port of Venice from the East. However, none of these colourings managed to eclipse the importance of kermes and woad in Europe since ancient times. This ongoing presence only became seriously threatened by the entry of cochineal carmine and indigo that started to be imported from the New World in the sixteenth century. KEYWORDS: colourings, kermes, woad, cochineal, indigo, Europe, America, Old World, New World, dyers, painters 1. THE PREHISPANIC ANTIQUITY OF COCHINEAL AND to 16th c.) from the carmine produced in the lands of Oaxaca, and INDIGO particularly that from the town of Nocheztlan, whose place-name in the Nahuatl language is represented by a cochineal insect set on a The most important dyes in America throughout antiquity were un- nopal cactus. These highly valued products were exchanged on both doubtedly the cochineal carmine (Dactylopius coccus) and the three the short and long distance trade routes that had been established more common varieties of indigo in the continent (Indigofera su- in Mesoamerica and the Andes area since very ancient times and ffruticosa Mill; Indigofera mucrolata; Indigofera jamaicensis),1 the origin thus, indigo, together with cotton, copal, liquid amber, vanilla, salt, of which in America dates back to the second millennium BC and turquoise and cocoa, was one of the goods commonly transported on when indigo was already known on the Pacific seaboard and in the the Maya trade routes (Cardós, 1975: 252). Pre-Colombian cultures area now corresponding to Yucatan (Anaya, 1992:92). While the tended to use this colouring mainly for dyeing and painting and it cultivation of both of these extended throughout the greater part of was employed to prepare the Maya blue pigment (Doménech et al., Mesoamerica and the Andes, there were particular regions that were 2007a; Doménech et al., 2007b; Doménech et al, 2007c, and Domé- more suited for their cultivation. In this regard, Oaxaca, in the high nech et al., 2006), a usage which extended to various Mesoamerican Mixteca, was one of the main producers of carmine in Mesoamerica cultures. Cochineal was, in turn, employed in dyeing, medicine (to during prehispanic times (Dahlgren, 1963: 12-13), while Guatema- lower fever, as a diuretic and as lubricating infusion to aid childbir- la, Honduras and El Salvador were the largest producers of indigo, th) (De la Cruz, 1991:81; Vázquez de Ágredos, 2007:139-140) and though following the conquest in the sixteenth century the Spanish as food colouring where the carmine was used to colour tamales crown showed far more interest in the indigo grown in Yucatan (Sahagún, 1995).2 As a result of all these properties, cochineal and (Ruiz, 1979: 123-130). indigo became very important among the prehispanic American civi- lisations, though only two of these uses really attracted the eye of the The importance of cochineal and indigo in the prehispanic era for Spanish reaching the New World at the end of the fifteenth century dyeing, painting, ceremonial, medicinal and even cosmetic purposes (1492), namely, their use for dyeing and painting. explains why these were so commonly taxed in the regions producing these goods in abundance. This was the case of the Aztec city of For these two purposes, and particularly for the first one, cochi- Tenochtitlan, which benefited in Postclassical times (950/1050 AD neal and indigo were cultivated, processed and exported in large ARCHÉ. PUBLICACIÓN DEL INSTITUTO UNIVERSITARIO DE RESTAURACIÓN DEL PATRIMONIO DE LA UPV - Núm. 2 - 2007 132 Mª Luisa Vázquez de Ágredos Pascual, María Teresa Doménech Carbó, Dolores Julia Yusá Marco, Sofía Vicente Palomino and Laura Fuster López Figura 1. Cochineal carmine (Dactylopius coccus) Figura 2. The plant of indigo (Indigofera suffruticosa Mill) quantities to the Old World. This then led to a considerable in- The chroniclers of the day also recorded the dyeing and painting crease in the number of plantations and the workforce required applications of this fine cochineal carmine during the prehispanic for these activities, frequently giving rise to modifications in the era, indicating that: “the purified and prepared carmine is known as techniques and tools traditionally employed by these societies to tlacuauctlapalli, which means fine or hard carmine; and is sold in tian- obtain the colourings from cochineal and indigo in an attempt to guis6 as cakes which were bought by the tochómitl (rabbit hair) dyers increase production to a maximum, particularly with regards to and by painters” (Sahagún, 1995). Similarly: “This (cochineal) is indigo colouring. found by the Mexicans on certain types of prickly pear cacti called nopalnocheztli […] and is used by both painters and dyers alike” (Her- 1.1 Ancient techniques for extracting colouring from cochineal and nández, 1942). its adulteration This double purpose of the cochineal carmine was fully employed in The six principal techniques traditionally employed in Mesoameri- the Old World, while ignoring its other prehispanic uses, namely as a ca for the extraction of the main pigmentation (carminic acid) se- ceremonial and medicinal substance or as a food colorant. gregated by the female scale insect Dactylopius Coccus were: by as- phyxiation in a temazcal,3 steaming in bain-marie, toasting in incense 1.2 Ancient and new methods of extracting dye from indigo burners, burning in hot water or direct fire, sun-drying and by inha- lation of turpentine. As the quality of the cochineal colouring was Indigo was the third most exported product from the New World to conditioned by the method employed to kill the female insect, the the Old, after cochineal and metal. This meant an enormous increase selection of method proved to be one of the most important decisio- in the cultivation of this plant since prehispanic times and led to con- ns in the entire process and in the pre-Colombian era the most favo- siderable changes in the indigenous system of polycultivation, while at ured methods were that of the temazcal and the bain-marie (Sarabia, the same time requiring the establishment of new indigo plantations 1994:102 and 124), as opposed to the practice prevalent in colonial which tended to be located close to markets in the interior and places times where it was more common to kill the insects by burning in allowing export, such as those established in the north and west of hot water or fire.4 the Yucatan Peninsula (Pinet, 1996:160).7 However, this was not the only change seen in the production of indigo since the arrival of the Once the female cochineal had been killed it was common to sun Spanish and where the canoes previously employed in pre-Colombian dry the insect, particularly when it had been killed by bain-marie, times for the maceration and oxidation of the plant were replaced by and then to grind it down to a very fine powder which was fre- large textile workshops (obrajes) in order to produce a greater quantity quently sold adulterated with other substances. In this manner, the of the colouring in the same period of time. chroniclers of the Indias reaching the centre of Mexico in the sixte- enth century recorded the sale of four different types of cochineal The archaeological remains of the seventeenth-century obraje de San carmine in the traditional markets of the region, these all being Andrés in the Zapotitlán Valley (El Salvador) (Gallardo, 1997) reveals named in Nahuatl language in accordance with their origin (wild the form of these colonial structures and provides an insight into how or cultivated) and purity (adulterated or fine). The names given to these were organised to obtain the indigo dye from the leaves of the the carmine were: nocheztli (cultivated carmine), Xalnicheztli (wild plant. The leaves containing the main colouring, the indigotina, were carmine), tlacuauctlapalli (fine carmine) and tlapalnextli (adulterated soaked for twenty-four hours in an alkaline water solution in several carmine), and where the suffix nextli (lye) not only indicated its of the large vats contained in these workshops. These vats were co- poor quality, but also revealed some of the alkaline type substances vered with lids which were opened after this twenty-four hour period that could have been mixed in with the carmine, such as lime and to allow the said solution, which on maceration now contained the ashes.