Two Whites

Two flasks of white, one grainy and speckled, the other smooth and banded with grey.

Work: Von der Universal Tinctur (author's holograph manuscript)
Artist / creator: Christian Wilhelm von Krohnemann (d. 1686)
Origin & date: Bayreuth, 1677
Held by: Wellcome Collection, London

Format

The full-resolution color-managed file — yours to print, study, and keep.

Size

Sized to protect print quality — this scan’s resolution supports sizes up to 30x40 cleanly.

$24.00

The story

Two long-necked flasks stand on the page, and both hold white. The left one is grainy and speckled, like snow mixed with grit; the right one smooth and faintly banded with grey. There is no other colour on the leaf. Krohnemann's Von der Universal Tinctur, made in Bayreuth in 1677, paints its flasks in pairs so the reader can compare them, and here the comparison is between two kinds of white. Writers in his tradition called the whitening the second great stage of the work, after the black. The painter had to find a way to show white on white paper, and did it with texture alone.

About this reproduction

Faithful reproduction of a public-domain work, sourced from Wellcome Collection, London’s open-access release.
Printed to order on archival cotton-rag stock, pigment inks rated 100+ years.
Color-managed to the source scan.
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Image courtesy of the Wellcome Collection, London, licensed CC BY 4.0.

In situ