Tragacanth gum
Dublin Core
Title
Subject
Description
Source
While versatile tragacanth gum was used in a variety of ways in the early modern period, such as for skin care and making sugar paste, its use as a base for stucco is unique among sixteenth-century recipes in Ms. Fr. 640:
Fol. 29r - “Stucco for molding”
Take tragacanth gum and put it to soak until, having drunk its water, it is swollen & rendered like jelly. Then grind it quite hard on marble & next take rye flour, which is better than wheat because it is more humid and does not make the paste as brittle, and sprinkle your tragacanth gum with it, & continue to grind and mix in thus, little by little, the very finely sieved flour…
Contributor
Alan Davidson, "Gum tragacanth," in The Oxford Companion to Food, ed. Tom Jaine (Oxford University Press, 2014). https://www-oxfordreference-com.ezproxy.cul.columbia.edu/view/10.1093/acref/9780199677337.001.0001/acref-9780199677337-e-1114.
John S. Mills, “Gum,” Grove Art Online, 2003. https://www.oxfordartonline.com/groveart/view/10.1093/gao/9781884446054.001.0001/oao-9781884446054-e-7000035658.
Jonathan Stephenson, "Painting medium," Grove Art Online, 2003. https://www.oxfordartonline.com/groveart/view/10.1093/gao/9781884446054.001.0001/oao-9781884446054-e-7000064669.
L. Masschelein-Kleiner, “Gum tragacanth,” in Ancient Binding Media, Varnishes and Adhesives, trans. Janet Bridgland, Sue Walston, and A.E. Werner (Rome: ICCROM, 1985), 50.
Nina Elizondo-Garza, “Stucco for Molding,” in Secrets of Craft and Nature in Renaissance France. A Digital Critical Edition and English Translation of BnF Ms. Fr. 640, ed. Making and Knowing Project, Pamela H. Smith, Naomi Rosenkranz, Tianna Helena Uchacz, Tillmann Taape, Clément Godbarge, Sophie Pitman, Jenny Boulboullé, Joel Klein, Donna Bilak, Marc Smith, and Terry Catapano (New York: Making and Knowing Project, 2020) https://edition640.makingandknowing.org/#/essays/ann_064_fa_17. DOI: https://www.doi.org/10.7916/1n6h-5f69.
Image: Tragacanth gum, from Relation d'un voyage du Levant by Joseph Pitton de Tournefort (Lyon : Chez Anisson et Posuel, 1717).
Helena Seo, Columbia University