Page:Notes and Queries - Series 10 - Volume 7.djvu/188

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NOTES AND QUERIES. [io s. VIL FEB. 23, 1907.

by his mother, who died almost as soon as she had brought him into the world.

R. S. B.

POONAH PAINTING (10 S. vii. 107). Two well-remembered accessories of my golden age were a tubby little copy of ' The Boy's Own Book,' inherited from an earlier gene ration, and a smart, red-coated, gilt-edgec volume which offered itself as ' The Girl's Own Book.' and was, compared with th other, " as moonlight unto sunlight, anc as water unto wine." It was, however, o it that I thought when I saw DR. MURRAY'S question, for I believed that it conveyec the mystery of Poonah painting ; and having obtained the loan of the book from a working nursery, I am glad to find thai I was right. I have before me a copy of the fourteenth edition of ' The Girl's Own Book,' by Mrs. Child (author of ' The Mother's Book,' ' Frugal Housewife,' ' Mother's Story Book,' &c.), which was published by Willian Tegg & Co., Cheapside, in 1848. The direc- tions for Poonah painting are set forth on pp. 208-9. I read :

" This style of painting requires nothing but care and neatness. The outline of whatever you wish to paint is drawn with the point of a needle on trans- parent paper, and then cut out with sharp scissors. No two parts of the bird, or flower, which touch each other, must be cut on the same piece of paper. Thus, on one bit of transparent paper, I cut the top and bottom petal of a rose ; on another piece I cut the leaves of the two opposite sides, &c. Some care is required in arranging the theorems, so that no two parts, touching each other, shall be used at the same time. It is a good plan to make a drawing on a piece of white paper, and mark all No. 1 upon the leaves you can cut on the first theorem, without having them meet at any point ; No. 2 on all you can cut in the same way on the second theorem, and so on. After all the parts are in readiness, lay your theorem upon your drawing-paper, take a stiff' brush of bristles, cut like those used in velvet colours, fill it with the colour you want, and put it on as dry as you possibly can, moving the brush round and round in circles, gently, until the leaf is coloured as deep as you wish. Where you wish to shade, rub a brush tilled with the dark colour you want carefully round and round the spot you wish to shade. Petal after petal, leaf after leaf, is done in this way, until the perfect flower is formed. No talent for drawing is necessary in this work ; for the figure is traced on transparent j>aper, and then the colours are rubbed over the holes in the same manner they paint canvass carpeta. In the choice of colours ' you must be guided by the pattern you copy. The light colour which ronns the groundwork is put on first, and the darker colours shaded on after it is quite dry. Green leaves should be first made bright yellow; then done over with bright green ; then shaded with indigo. A very brilliant set of colours in powder have been prepared for this kind of painting ; if these be used, they must be very faithfully ground with a bit of giaes, or smooth ivory. If the colours be put on

wet, they will look very badly. The transparent paper can be prepared in the following manner : Cover a sheet of letter-paper with spirits of turpen- tine, and let it dry in the air ; then varnish one side with copal varnish ; when perfectly dry, turn it and varnish the other side."

I hope the above description of Poonah- painting method may satisfy DR. MURRAY, but I should require something more lucid if I wished to practise the spurious art. The part about the paper is clear enough. As to the brushes, I fancy I once possessed some which I inherited with an old paint- box. They were round, flat ended, and perhaps from a quarter to half an inch in diameter. I think DR. MURRAY postdates the vogue of Poonah painting by about twenty years. It was not fashionable in 1856. ST. SWITHIN.

My recollection of Poonah painting as a boy is that it was a kind of stencilling. Poonah paper was a sheet of some rather thick, semi-transparent substance. Out of this were cut the shapes of leaves, petals of flowers, &c. The Poonah paper was laid on the paper to be ornamented, and colour applied to the cut-out spaces with a stiff brush cut flat at the end. The apertures were moved about till a perfect flower had been formed. SHERBORNE.

Sherborne House, Northleach.

Pigot & Co.'s 'Directory' for 1822-3 under Cheltenham has " Stanton, Mrs., Indian poonah painter, 21, Bath Street." HENRY JOHN BEARDSHAW.

27, Northumberland Road, Sheffield.

PICTURES AT TEDDINGTON (10 S. vii.

88, 136). These pictures represent Sibyls.

Their names have suffered somewhat in

the process of restoration or in that of

transcription. " Silvia Samai " evidently

= Sibylla Samia (the Samian Sibyl). " S.

Edifica " I conjecture to be Sibylla Delfica

Pelphica), the Sibyl of Delphi. (Have letters

n " Samia" and " Delfica," and perhaps in

some other names, been painted above the

"ine, and thus led to error in copying ?)

' Silvia Europea " might be Sibylla Euboica

another name for the Sibyl of Cumse),

unless Europea be here used to describe

some Sibyl ordinarily known by another

name (the Sibylla Cimmerica ?). " S. JEri-

rea " is the Erythraean Sibyl. " S. Agrip-

3ina " I do not recognize. Is she Sibylla

^gyptia (although this latter has been

dentified with S. Persica) ? The Persian,

Phrygian, and Tiburtine Sibyls offer no

iifficulty.

The medallion picture representing the