Milk Paint is Older Than You Thought

[Richard Line]

South Africans used milk-based paint 49,000 years ago - This is according to an article from the Scientific America daily news site. Here's a link if your interested - http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2015/06/150630202044.htm
Okay, maybe not of major interest to our immediate use of milk paint, still I found it interesting.

[george wilson]

But,apparently Americans didn't use it until the 19th. C.

[Bill Houghton]

I wonder if they argued about pins first vs. tails first, too?

Thanks. I sent it along to an archaeologist friend who's always sending us links to stuff she finds. Nice to find something before she did.

[bridger berdel]

milk paint seems like one of those things that would inevitably be discovered by any society that practices animal husbandry, has interior surfaces and a desire to decorate them.

[Mel Fulks]

George has friendships and working access to excellent sources. But the big gaps in the use of things that go way back are puzzling. Especially the things , as Bridger points out, that would seem to lend themselves to being discovered by accident. The every day humble things that were likely to be coated with simple available materials got worn out and tossed.

[george wilson]

We have plenty of humble things in the large collections in Williamsburg. But no 18th. C. objects painted with milk base paint. It seems strange to me,too,but the curators and master cabinet maker says they only used oil based paints at that time.

I'm not an expert on milk based paint by any means. Musical instruments were the area of my expertise as far as objects that had finishes. They all had oil base varnishes,though I know shellac was well known even in the 17th. C. in Britain. There was a treatise written in that time(By whom I have forgotten),where the bad characteristics of shellac,such as losing its gloss,was mentioned. By the way,I have never had seedlac finishes lose their gloss. I have things I finished with seedlac 30 years ago,and they are still fine. My favorite is Siam seedlac.

[bridger berdel]

Once they had access to the tech to make oil paint i'm not surprised that milk paint was abandoned. Especially if there were times of famine or something like cheese making became an important economic activity.

[Stewie Simpson]

COMMERCIAL PAINT
Over the next 200 to 300 years, the old water-based milk paint, as well as the newer oil paint remained relatively unchanged. Artists mixed their own paints, as did house painters and furniture makers. Recipes for oil paints were closely guarded secrets. Milk paint continued to be made the way it had been for thousands of years before.
In Colonial America, as earlier in Europe, itinerant painters roamed the countryside, carrying pigments with them, which could be mixed with a farmer's or householder's own milk and lime. Often, the itinerant painter would be a tinker or farrier, or have some trade in addition to his knowledge of paint. Practically every household had their own cow or goat, and each community had its own lime pit. Even though there exist many examples of early American furniture that was painted with some form of oil paint, the look associated most widely with the country homes and furniture of the 17th, 18th, and 19th centuries is that of the soft velvety, rich colors of milk paint.
This scene doesn't change much until after the Civil War. In 1868, the first patent was given for the metal paint can with its tightly fitting top. With this development came the commercial oil paint industry. For the first time, paint could be manufactured in great mass, packaged in the new patented cans and shipped to stores throughout the country.
But this kind of operation does not lend itself to the use of milk paint. Made from natural milk protein, it will spoil just like whole milk. Therefore, from the very beginning of the commercial oil paint industry, up until 1935, the only paint sold commercially was oil-based paint, to which was added lead, mildewcides, and other poisonous additives. Other types of casein paints were developed that could not be considered milk paint. Casein was mixed with formaldehyde, or with ammonia, or with borax, to create much different types of paint recipes. Around 1935, a new water-based casein(milk protein) paint was developed with the use of synthetic rubber and styrene. This was called Kem-Tone, the first latex paint, which met with great commercial success. http://www.milkpaint.com/about_history.html

[Richard Line]

Stewie, Thanks for the brief history of paint. A lot there I didn't know, and good to learn.

[george wilson]

The above taken right off the Milk Paint site on the internet. It it biased towards milk based paint? And yet,curators and historic area craftsmen insist that oil based paints were used in the 18th. C.,with milk based paints coming into vogue in the 19th. C..

Milk based paints were certainly known in different places,but other things I have just read stated that the use of milk based paints fell into decline after the invention of oil based paints in the 1400's. One source in France mentioned that you had to be careful to not even let your clothes brush against milk based painted walls or it would start rubbing off.

But,I'm not a paint expert. All I know is what I was told while working in Williamsburg. I had made a couple of wig boxes and had thought it would be nice to paint them with milk based paint. Mack Headley told me they only used oil based paints during the period.

I did gain considerable expertise in the making of early oil based varnishes,which I researched and made for several years because of its importance in violin making. The director used to get on my case about the amount of time I spent on the subject,in fact. But,he was not a violin maker.

[Phil Thien]

The above taken right off the Milk Paint site on the internet. It it biased towards milk based paint? And yet,curators and historic area craftsmen insist that oil based paints were used in the 18th. C.,with milk based paints coming into vogue in the 19th. C..


I believe it was oil-based first, and then milk paint after that.

In fact, I believe it was the California territory that refused to allow Homestead Depots to sell oil-based paints ("thou dost offend by senses with thine foul odor") that ultimately resulted in Homestead Depot deciding to drop oil based paints altogether and just carry their new Beer-Premium-Primer-Plus-Milk-Paint at all locations.

[george wilson]

That's what the experts in the museum said,Phil. I made hardly any objects that needed painting,myself. Everything I made,except for a few odd cases like the wig boxes were varnished.

An interesting fact: The owner of Wetherburn's Tavern in Williamsburg must have been a tightwad,or in financial straits. He hired CHILDREN to paint the tavern Spanish red in the 18th. C..

This is a large,2 story(and TALL stories) building. It would be a big job even for professional painters today. It is amazing what was expected of children in those days. Of course,I got a good dose of that myself when I was young. One reason why my skeleton is worn out.

[Phil Thien]

Well oil based paints were typically just linseed oil with a dryer and pigment, no? The article linked above makes it seem like milk paint was used because the raw materials were abundantly available, but the same could be said for oil-based. And at least when it comes to exterior use, the oil-based product will protect exposed materials, a milk paint needs to be top-coated to protect from moisture.

[Warren Mickley]

There is so much fantasy and fiction in that paint company copy it is hard to know what to say. Consider this:

"In Colonial America, as earlier in Europe, itinerant painters roamed the countryside, carrying pigments with them, which could be mixed with a farmer's or householder's own milk and lime. Often, the itinerant painter would be a tinker or farrier, or have some trade in addition to his knowledge of paint."

Can you image a paint salesman/farrier loading up his wagon with pigments and then throwing on a forge, bellows, an anvil and iron bars and charcoal, for a journey into the countryside?

Back in the 20th century guys used to paint reproductions with "milk paint" (somehow they did not use milk like the old days) and then top coat with oil or varnish to protect and "bring out the color". If the 18th century guys had linseed oil, they would have just added the pigments to the oil and bypassed the milk.

[george wilson]

It do sound a bit poetic,do it not?

[Ryan Mooney]

Finding primary sources on this seems to be pretty hard given the general level of misinformation from some of the sites. As best as I can find it appears that milk was used in at least some paints through the 1500's after which time it was mostly abandoned for some period of time in favor of oil paints.

An example of a fairly trustworthy source detailing the use of "tempura" which is arguably a form of milk paint (although you could also certainly claim its egg paint, although it appears that some tempura's were heavier in casein content than egg or only used casein in some cases so) in the 1400s
http://www.visual-arts-cork.com/old-masters/botticelli.htm

According to this article it was "rediscovered" in the early 1800's precisely because of a lack of linseed oil during the french revolution.
http://www.historicnewengland.org/preservation/your-older-or-historic-home/articles/pdf153.pdf

Also managed to find this doc which is my best source to date from the Getty and williamsburg on historical paints (apologies for the sketchy looking url, I'll excerpt the most relevant bits for this discussion but the doc is a gold mine of information on historical pigment/binder usage):
http://d2aohiyo3d3idm.cloudfront.net/publications/virtuallibrary/0892365013.pdf
Of interest are pages 42 which states:
"Casein
The early history of casein in paints is sketchy. Ancient Hebrew docu-
ments reportedly mention its use (Gettens and Stout 1966:8). Cennini’s
The Craftsman’s Handbook (1954:68) mentions the use of casein glue but
does not mention casein paints. Lime casein was reported to have been the
medium of some late-twelfth-century wooden panels from the ceiling of
a church (Denninger 1969). Casein paints, which were produced in the
United States on a commercial scale beginning in the late nineteenth cen-
tury, were apparently very popular in interior and exterior house painting
throughout the nineteenth century, probably popularized by a late-
eighteenth-century French book that appeared in translation just after
1800 (Phillips 1994:253). How extensively casein paints were used, and
what the specific formulations were, can be understood only by analysis of
paint samples. Virtually no detailed examinations of these paints have been
published to date."
Followed by a description of the composition and behavior of milk and casein in paint. Summarized snippets:
"If whole milk were used, the dried paint would contain all of the
components of the original milk. Drying simply involves evaporation of
water. As the water evaporates, the protein micelles become denatured.
This is an irreversible change, mean-ing the protein micelles are no longer
soluble in water after drying. However, the milk sugar component remains
readily soluble in water;thus, such a milk paint would probably be easily
damaged by water."
And
"A purer casein paint could be produced by beginning with curds, which are precipitated
from soured milk and are rich in casein (the casein micelles become unstable under
acidic conditions). Washed, dried, and ground curds are largely insoluble in water but can
be solubilized by the addition of a base. Drying of such a casein paint involves
evaporation of water; if a volatile base (such as ammonia) has been used, the
protein will precipitate as the water and the base evaporate. If a nonvolatile base is
used (such as lime), the cation of the base (calcium, in the case of lime) reacts
with the protein molecules during drying to form highly insoluble calcium-protein
complexes; reaction occurs at the phosphate groups on the protein. Depending on
formulation, a casein paint could remain read-ily soluble in alkaline water or could
be virtually insoluble after drying. If skim milk were used for the curds, the
resulting paint would contain little if any of the original oil or fat component but
could still contain some milk sugar"

There is also reference to "Nathaniel Whittock's The Decorative Painters’ and Glaziers’ Guide(1827:57)" in which it is stated "Alternate glazes in distemper (animal-glue medium) are described. Both were to be followed by second glazes of whiting ground in milk, and dark veins in Prussian blue".

The commentary on how some pigments would react (poorly) with a milk base are also illuminating:
"This consistent use of Prussian blue in oil disproves a popular theory
among folk art collectors and dealers that many of the “dry-looking”
blue paints were milk-based. It is highly unlikely that any blue paint
containing Prussian blue would be a milk-based paint, as the high pH
of a casein or milk-based paint would rapidly discolor the Prussian blue to an
unsightly brown."

It also appears that it may be difficult to differentiate some of the different protein binders after sufficient time has passed so a lot of the research is still needing to be done.

One would have to assume that there was some residual use of casein binder in paints and glazes ongoing, but it might well be sparse or highly regional depending on what the folks in that area knew about.

There is also likely some confusion because the lime washes were sometimes referred to as lime "milk" although no milk was (usually? ever?) used.

[Mel Fulks]

Ryan , thanks for an excellent effort. I've got some printed diaries and such that are well indexed and I am checking them.

[bridger berdel]

Marketing hyperbole is nothing new.

Milk paint and oil paint are both peasant technologies. It may be that few societies would bother to produce both, and seems likely that village or mobile societies would settle on the one that best met their needs and abandon the other if presented a choice. Did the early craftsmen from europe bring oil paint knowledge with them? Until there was the cultural demand for variety brought on by city dwelling milk paint might have simply not been necessary.

[Mel Fulks]

I think that if the experts said milk paint was "little used" I would have no problem . Can't accept "not used ". I don't think pregnant women accepted the smell of oil based paint inside a house or the lack of painting when they wanted it.

[Ryan Mooney]

Mel, Looking forward to what you find.

While I certainly believe George is probably correct, I've found the base statement that "it wasn't used in the 1800's" to be a bit unsatisfying because there was some clear evidence of related substances being used before and after so the "why" of it not being common in that era has been a bit of a head scratcher for me. Clearly there are some advantages to oil bases but there are some significant disadvantages as well (price primarily, oils weren't historically cheap substances). So I have to wonder if you went lower down the economic ladder if there might have been some usage in the peripheries during that era as well. I think it may be hard to find given the fact that a lot of the cheaper items were scraped and re-painted somewhat frequently (in geological time) and some of the other protein bases behave similar enough that its hard to tell them apart without some pretty high tech equipment.


Until there was the cultural demand for variety brought on by city dwelling milk paint might have simply not been necessary.

Well there are a wide number of protein based glazes and paints and related. Simply dividing it into "milk and oil" is insufficient. The nature of how proteins behaved when drying was well known in the past and used in a lot of interesting ways. For example the floors in the transvaal were historically made of clay with a manure and blood top coating. The manure and blood mixture would harden into a substance that was both tough and moisture resistant similar to linoleum.

Something as simple as this was likely independently discovered and forgotten a number of times.

[george wilson]

When I am not an expert in something,I always say so,and I am not an expert in this subject by any means. When I wanted to know something outside my scope,I did have great resources at my disposal,and still do. I reciprocated with my knowledge. Hardly any objects I habitually made needed painting. So,I am perfectly satisfied to be corrected on the history of paints.

All I can say is Mack Headley,Master Cabinet Maker,is one of those who sought super accuracy and authenticity in every detail in the Cabinet Shop during his stay there. Different masters were this way to varying degrees. He said "It was ALL oil". That is all I can tell you. He was referring to paint used on furniture,of course. Or the wig boxes I asked about in this particular case. So,keep digging!:)

[Ryan Mooney]

When I am not an expert in something,I always say so,and I am not an expert in this subject by any means. When I wanted to know something outside my scope,I did have great resources at my disposal,and still do. I reciprocated with my knowledge.

Yah, but you've certainly had better access to the experts than pretty much all of us and you're "not an expert" is still a heck of a lot more than I know on any of these subjects :D I'm certainly not claiming your wrong by any means (within the context), its more of a question of why you're right :cool:


So,keep digging!:)

Will do :)

I most likely wouldn't have started digging here without your prompting either. The topic comes up every so often and I've been trying to find some useful primary sources for quite a while... but the data is really sparse...

[Ryan Mooney]

Another list of somewhat primary sources.

http://blog.lostartpress.com/2016/02/17/milk-paint-a-short-history/

I haven't dug into any of the documents referenced there so I can't make any direct statements as the to applicability of those as pertains to furniture.

[Phil Stone]

I wish my dad were here for this discussion. He was a master carpenter specializing in restoring colonial houses in Connecticut. My mom says he did a great deal of research on original paint when he restored the Leffingwell Inn in Norwich and the Silas Deane House in Wethersfield, and did his best to come up with period-appropriate recipes. This was in the early 1960s, mind you.

[Karl Andersson]

Peter Follansbee worked with the MFA researchers in Boston to make as close to an exact copy of the top portion of a late 17th-century "pilgrim" colonial cupboard. They used some very old photos and scraps, and the mostly-intact base, to show what the top probably looked like when new. The furniture from this region and time was usually carved and often painted, as was this cupboard, and the paint analysis showed it was based on animal protein - but Peter decided it was hide glue, not milk, mixed with pigment, probably based on further discussions with the researchers regarding the type of protein. The discussion about that part is here: https://pfollansbee.wordpress.com/2009/09/05/more-paint-samples/ and there are a number of other posts about how he actually made and used the paint.

Something to consider is that the American Colonies were not one big homogenous culture, even when the majority (or landowning class) were English. I'm sure there were regional differences between the different areas of England that provided colonists that were reflected in their preferences and practices in the colonies - of course, modified by what material was available. There were also areas where the English-derived were definitely not the majority, although they did get to be "in charge", like the Swedish settlements in Delaware/ New jersey, Dutch in New York, etc.

So, while statements could be made about a city and its nearby hamlets regarding cultural technology (like Williamsburg) based on research there, it's doubtful you could make a finite statement about the polyglot culture and practices of ALL of "colonial America" unless the technology hadn't been invented yet.

Kind of like saying "a planet has to have water in liquid state for it to be considered capable of supporting life". looking at things with a narrow lens limits what you see - which is great if you have a narrow field of interest.

And painting with hide glue sounds like a royal pain. Has anyone made home-pressed flax oil though? How many acres of flax produce a gallon of oil - was it really that abundant? Much of the clothing was made from flax, I just have never seen anything about the flax oil industry and home flax presses are never shown next to the spinning wheels and other flax-related colonial equipment.

yeah, I needed a diversion - back to work...
Karl

[Ryan Mooney]

Karl, you make a couple of really good points that I heartily agree with.

In particular it is very difficult to determine the actual type of protein used in many cases - I added some references to that issue in the comments to this follow on blog post (which also has a couple of other pointers).
http://blog.lostartpress.com/2016/02/18/milk-paint-advice-and-a-mad-chef/
which does bring into question which of the "milk paints" were "milk", it looks like we may be able to answer that with some better reliability in the future but a lot of the older work is relegated to the more generic "it used a protein binder" category.

As to historic oil extraction, that's a really good question. You could certainly grind it and then do a very primitive filter press and get a moderate yield. Most of the early uses of the seeds seemed to be for animal fodder (a use which continues to today, a small amount of flax seed in your horses feed makes for a shiny coat).

The seed/oil mostly certainly started out as a way to use the by products of linen processing (also made from the flax plant) but how much was done when and where I don't know.