Introduction

Italians wore fur to keep warm and stylish. Because fine fur was expensive, fur appeared among the possessions of ordinary Italian most commonly in smaller accessories like hats and muffs, or linings and collars of outer garments. Fur was sourced from a wide range of animals, including cat, wolf, rabbit, marten, beaver, fox, ermine, foin (stone marten) and lynx (Figure i.1). As I have shown in Chapter 3 above, while the ‘Refashioning the Renaissance’ database shows that some artisans could afford smaller accessories made of more expensive marten fur, none of the artisans owned garments of fine ermine fur, let alone exotic leopard or panther fur, apart from the furrier Baldissara Da Pozzo, who had two pieces of leopard fur in his Venetian workshop in 1580.¹

If any of our artisans owned fake furs, they were not noticed by the inventory appraisers. Yet recipes that promise to provide imitation leopard furs suggest that there was an interest in mimicking rare and pricy furs. Across the social spectrum, we see a desire for fake furs; in 1594, Grand Duke Ferdinando I de’ Medici wrote that his agent Cosimo Bottegari was headed to Transylvania with ‘some sables and lynxes, not those real ones that come from other parts, but those that Art imitates’.² While we do not know how Ferdinand’s fakes were made, printed early modern instructions offer possibilities to discover more about these imitations that do not survive in material form.

At a workshop focusing on imitation materials and techniques in early modern clothing in March 2020, organised by the ‘Refashioning the Renaissance’ project, we explored some of the mimetic methods recommended in early modern recipes books. We wanted to see how imitative effects functioned. Could fake fur provide the effect of a real fur close or at a distance, and was it a convincing substitute? Did recipe books make rare furs, such as leopard, accessible within the reach of an ordinary artisan?

Figure I.1 Fine furs such as this lynx lining and sable zibellino signified fashion and great expense. Paolo Veronese, Portrait of Countess Livia da Porto Thiene and Her Daughter Deidamia, 1551. Walters Art Museum, Baltimore, 37.541.

The experiment

These instructions, taken from the 1563 Italian edition of the popular recipe book De secreti by the pseudonymous Alessio Piemontese, promise to transform a humble white pelt by tinting it black to appear like leopard or panther fur:

At first glance, the recipe seems unlikely: white lead ((PbCO3)2·Pb(OH)2), and quicklime (CaO) are not typical dyestuffs. But rather than dismiss these instructions out of hand, we decided to follow the recipe step-by-step. As lead is toxic, and when the caustic quicklime is added to water it forms slaked lime and creates a rapid exothermic reaction, a safety protocol was required. We used the Biofilia biological art laboratory at Aalto University, a wet bench research space equipped with fume hoods, and wore PPE including lab coats, masks, heatproof gloves and goggles. Parsing the recipe into modern parlance, with reference to Material Safety Data Sheets, and having a clear waste management plan, were crucial, to ensure the safety of all participants. The modernised interpretation of the recipe, which I reinterpreted with the guidance of biotechnician James Evans, looked like this:

Materials and tools: White Lead, Quicklime, Deionised Water, Metal Pan / Glass beaker, Heat Source, Stirring Stick, Hitting Stick, Brush, White Fur or Hide, Paper to lay down in fume hood

Process:

1. Weigh all ingredients and prepare all tools
2. Take 3 scoops of water and place in a metal pan or glass beaker, slowly add 2oz quicklime, and 1oz white lead
3. Heat on a hot plate until warm
4. Remove from heat and stir
5. Using a brush, tint the white hide with spots using the mixture
6. Leave to dry
7. Once dried, hit with a stick (work in fume hood)
8. Repeat if necessary

As the recipe does not specify a white fur, we used two kinds – rabbit and sheep’s wool – to compare the effect on differently textured pelts. Having measured out the ingredients, we slowly added the quicklime to the water and used a magnetic stirrer to reduce bodily contact with ingredients (Figure i.2). We observed a temperature rise, then added lead, which transformed the mixture into a milky pink solution. We painted spots on to the two furs, which dried into pale hard lumps, and left overnight.

As we returned to the lab the following morning, we assumed the experiment had failed. The spots had not turned brown or black, and we wondered what we had done wrong. We then revisited the text and noticed the instruction to ‘give strikes’ to the spots. Upon hitting, to our surprise, the spots crumbled away to reveal brown hair beneath (Figure i.3).

Under a digital microscope, and with reference to research, it was clear that this is no ordinary dye recipe where colour is bound to the surface of a fibre, but rather a reaction that occurs within the core of hair fibres (Figure i.4).⁴ The blackening occurs because quicklime creates an alkaline environment and weakens the hair fibre, allowing the lead to bind with sulphur in the amino acids of the shaft, creating galena (PbS) crystals, which are black. The hard surface blotches are likely excess solution and waste salts from the reaction which need to be removed from the furs to reveal the transformation within the core of the hair.

Figure I.2 Paula Hohti adds quicklime to the water at Aalto University biolab.

Figure I.3 Sheep and rabbit fur treated with the solution after beating (a few spots have been left with dried pink solution for comparison).

Figure I.4 Sophie Pitman and James Evans examine the formation of galena crystals in the hair shafts using a microscope.

The recipe was a success – the spots became dark and created a leopard-like pattern, but the shafts of hair become brittle and weak. Either this recipe requires a shorter application time and weaker solution, and therefore an experienced dyer, or the owner must sacrifice material quality for visual effects.

Piemontese’s suggestion that this technique can be used to create imitation leopard or panther fur is a novel one, but similar recipes using quicklime and lead to create a ‘very beautiful black’ dye for wool and hair can be found in early modern manuscript and printed collections, including Gioanventura Rosetti’s Plichto (Venice, 1548) and the Toulousian BnF Ms. Fr. 640 (c. 1580) examined by the ‘Making and Knowing’ project.⁵ The Bolognese surgeon Leonardo Fioravanti even reasoned that the transformation worked because litharge is a species of lead, and lead ‘by nature’ (di sua natura) makes black. The lye, he claimed, dissolves it (lo solve).⁶

Conclusion

Piemontese’s recipe might only represent one contemporary technique for fake fur, but through its reconstruction we gain a sense of a successful visual effect offered by a fake fur, albeit one that fails to imitate the soft fine furs of real leopard or panther. The experiment suggests how non-elite early modern men and women might have been able to participate in the fine fashions of exotic furs at less expense and reminds us that there was a widespread interest in manipulating materials to mimic rarer, finer or costlier ones.

The fake fur experiment was iterative, building upon the research and practical experimentation of the ‘Making and Knowing’ project, and nuancing findings based on the ‘Refashioning the Renaissance’ project archival research about early modern artisanal clothing. It demonstrates the dual reward in reconstructing recipes. On the one hand, material findings can enrich our understanding of visual and archival sources, by giving a material presence to objects that no longer survive, showing how they were made and operated in multi-sensory ways. In addition, the reconstruction of recipes also encourages us to interrogate the text itself. It is a means of close reading that demands we pursue in-depth research about the materials, processes, workshop conditions, artisanal skills and tacit knowledge as well as the social, economic and cultural context of making processes and finished objects.