1-4. An award of arms done in the style of a late Franco- Flemish devotional book is a work based on a Flemish style popular amongst wealthy patrons during the latter part of the fifteenth century and the first half of the sixteenth century. There were a variety of private devotional books used by the nobility and the wealthy; many of the most luxurious Flemish manuscripts produced in this period were in the trompe l'oiel style, such as The Grimani Breviary, The Hours of Englebert of Nassau, The Mayer van den Bergh Breviary, The Isabella Breviary, The Psalter of Anne Boleyn. The Flemish devotional book, be it a book of hours, breviary, prayerbook, or psalter, was frequently exported to other countries, and often purchased as a gift to a monarch. Indeed, the list above includes a book purchased as a gift to Queen Isabella of Spain and one purchased at the specific request of Queen Anne Boleyn of England. The presented award scroll represents a work done in that milieu.

This particular piece was done at the behest of the award recipient. He was aware that this scribe had previously done a Willow specifically in the style of the Mayer van den Bergh, substituting cooking herbs for the more usual flowers. As he also received his award for cooking, he asked for a similar award. The use of herbs as a trompe l'oiel motif is not unknown; Mira Calligraphica Monumenta, an exemplar book created for Emperor Rudolf II, was illustrated by the Flemish artist Joris Hoefnagel with many herbal plants in addition to the more usual flora. There are also examples of pickles, nightshade, and other plants cited in Backhouse.

The Award of Arms, unlike the previous Willow, is not based specifically on a particular book. There were a variety of books used as inspiration and reference for this piece; see the attached appendix for specific citations. Scholars long ago established that scribes of the middle ages and renaissance often created new works by using elements of previous works [Farquhar, 1976; Alexander, 1992], thus, I believe that this piece is created in a period manner despite not being directly inspired by a specific piece.

5. The following is a short, specific description of the materials and tools used to create this work:

• Opaline Vellum: In the late fifteenth and early sixteenth century, luxury books were still created on vellum. Paper, by this time in use for some books, was found primarily in less expensive works--even the printed luxury books were upon vellum (e.g., Dirringer, 1982; Olmert, 1992). Because of the expense of vellum, I substituted opaline vellum. Opaline vellum is boiled vellum scraps that have been molded and pressed as paper. The idea of making a usable art material from boiled vellum scraps was not unknown in period, for Cennini (15th c.) describes a process of making a translucent paper from boiled vellum scraps. While I have not yet found evidence that this art material would ever have been used to create luxury manuscripts, I believe that the affordable Opaline vellum makes a good substitute in a modern work: its working properties are similar, its appearance is somewhat similar, the process was known if not used for this purpose, and paper of the era was an inappropriate ground for such luxury works. The Opaline was the best I could afford.
• Gum Sandarac: a dried sap used to prepare vellum for ink. (Child, 1985)
• Pigments: I used the following pigments to make paints: Spanish Golden Ochre (a period yellow, the background of the trompe l'oiel border); Lampblack (a period black made from soot--I made mine by burning a beeswax candle and collecting soot on a spoon); Ultramarine blue, deep (modern synthetic substitute for Lapis Lazuli--at $145 an ounce, Lapis is too expensive for my use); Titanium White (modern substitute for the poisonous pigment, lead white); Sap Green (made by boiling buckthorn berries, adding alum, and adding an inert white pigment to be dyed, per Strausburg Manuscript and De Arte Illuminadi); Ultramarine Violet (modern synthetic, used to substitute for turnsole, a plant material I was unable to obtain); Venetian Red (a period earth color). Pigments that I purchased (versus those that I made) were bought already ground. At this point in period (that is, the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries), artists purchased pigments from apothecaries, often already ground. Those that were not pre-ground were generally prepared by younger apprentices: my Laurel, Mistress Bronwyn ferch Gwyn ap Rhys, tells me that I am no longer a younger apprentice, and I don't have to grind pigments anymore! See appendix 1 for the list of books containing pigment information.
• Gum Arabic: modernly, the sap of the acacia tree, but in period, could have been the sap of a variety of trees. This was ground, then heated in water to form a solution. To make a paint, I mixed the pigment with water, then blended the wet pigment, the gum Arabic solution, and a drop of honey. This method was described in Noble, 1993; Staff of Scribe, 1025 (receipt included in appendix 3); De Arte Illuminandi (15th c.), and other similar books.
• Gouache: a variety of commercially prepared, water based paints. This paint is made from period materials--pigment, gum Arabic, inert white--and so can be considered a period paint equivalent. I used commercially prepared gouaches for a variety of reasons. 1. It is beyond my budget to obtain enough pigments to make paints in the 25+ shades used in this work. In period, different shades of paint were frequently made by separating the grades of pigment, in addition to blending and other such things (see Cennini, 15th c.; Theophilus, c. 1122). Pigments purchased in the modern era have already been separated and so one gets one shade. 2. The toxicity of many period pigments is notorious, but many of the modern substitutions are just as dangerous--cadmium yellow pigment is no less dangerous than the orpiment it replaces. 3. Many period pigments are not sufficiently lightfast to be used in artworks that will be frequently exposed to light.
• Ox gall solution: Water and ox gall. See Limming, 1573 for a presently available reference (appendix 3), although other evidence for its use as a surfactant is available. Ox gall solution eases the application of the paint.
• Graphite: used for layout in the cartoon, lining for the calligraphy, some drawing directly on the work. Graphite is in use for drawing and lining by the eleventh century, according to Alexander (1992, pg. 38), and Limming (1573) also makes reference to the use of graphite (called "pencell of blacke lead", folio 2v), as does Cennini (15th c), referring to a soft black stone that can be sharpened with a penknife and used to draw. Leadpoints, silver points, brush, sharpened bones, and ink and quill are other period methods of drawing and lining.
• Ferro-gallic ink: made from oak galls, ferrous sulfate, and water heated together. References to this sort of ink can be found in almost any period treatise on making artists materials: Cennini, Theophilus, Limming, Strasburg Manuscript, De Arte Illuminandi, Book of Secrets, Staff of the Scribe, and most of the books included in Merryfield (1849) contain at least one receipt for making an ink with a tannin-providing substance and a ferrous sulfate-providing substance. A variety of ink recipes from period manuals are cited in Appendix 3; inks used in this piece were based on those quoted from Book of Secrets (late 16th century, in Thompson, J, 1996).
• Gesso: The ultimate gilding base. The making of real gesso is a time consuming, sweat producing process, requiring slaked plaster, white lead, Armenian bole, et cetera. While I did plan to make real gesso for this project, the plaster took much longer to slake than I expected, so I was forced by time constraints to use modern gesso instead. I add some English Red pigment to it to color, and on the whole, its performance was similar to classic gesso. The instructions I planned to use for making gesso can be found in appendix 3 as part of the transcription of The arte of limming.
• Gold Leaf: purchased gold leaf. The making of gold leaf is an art unto itself these days, and as many artists purchased the leaf ready made in period, I felt comfortable in doing so myself.
• Cartoon: The drawing I made for this piece. To save wear and tear on the opaline vellum, I first drew the pattern for the illumination on a piece of regular paper, making all needed changes thereon. Once the cartoon was drawn, I made some period carbon paper (see the instructions in Limming, attached as appendix 3) and attempted to use it to transfer the drawing to the opaline vellum. What a mess that made! I cleaned the carbon off the opaline vellum and lined up the cartoon and the opaline vellum on a bright window. I first started tracing with the quill pen and ink made with soot, but that was fraught with flow problems, so I switched to a modern crow quill. It occurred to me, during the course of all this, that I might try obtaining a sufficient amount of horn to create a small panel (as horn was translucent enough to be read through and was sometimes used to create windowpanes--and was used to transfer images from one book to a new work [Morrill, 1995; Langly, 1996; Limming, 1573]) and try to make a candle powered "light box." This might be a way to solve the flow problems of the quill.
• Miscellaneous tools: Tools used for creating the piece: lighted window, portable slant desk, straight edge, scalpel, quill, crow quill, burnisher, brushes, pricking stylus. Although instructions for making brushes can be found in period treatise, so also are there instructions merely for picking the best brush. As I do not have access to fur for brush making, I followed the "choosing instructions" to pick the best sable brushes I could afford. The quill was cut according to the instructions included in appendix 3. The burnisher was made for me by my Lord from a hematite bead, a wooden dowel, and plumber's putty. The pricker was used primarily to indicate the placement of the calligraphy lines; this section of the opaline vellum was trimmed off.

6. There are four primary techniques used on this piece:

• Calligraphy--for the ease of judging, this technique is treated more fully in appendix A.
• Gilding--With a brush, I laid the gesso into the gilded areas. I applied several layers and allowed the gesso to dry between layers. As I was using this piece to try the techniques from Limming (1573), I did not sand the gesso smooth as I usually would have: I scraped it as smooth as I was able with the scalpel. This snapped a couple of blades and did not provide as smooth a surface as sanding would have (Next time, I'll just sand--or use a stronger curved blade). I used loose leaf gold; while gilder's pads are period, I instead removed the gold from the book and, with a scalpel, cut the gold directly on a piece of paper--I don't have a gilder's pad. I used a 1/4 flat brush that I had wiped upon my hairline to pick up and move the gold. I leaned over the gesso, breathed upon it for about 15 seconds, applied the gold, and burnished it lightly. As the applications of gold dried, I burnished harder and harder, until I got a nice shine. Unfortunately, after painting, some of the sheen was lost, and attempts to reburnish the gold ended up tearing gold from the gesso base. As I was reburnishing through glassine, I believe that the problem was the gold's adherence to the gesso; the burnisher did not make contact with the gilding. In future, I shall be more careful in applying the paint should I choose to used modern gesso.
• Whitework--Several of the elements within the body of the calligraphy are whiteworked. I first laid the base color, allowed it to dry, then painted the white decorative motifs. Some of the methods that I use in doing whitework are more fully explained in appendix 3, if you would like to know more.
• Trompe l'oiel--In English, "fool the eye", the largest technique used on this piece. This is the art of painting in a manner that makes it appear that portions of painting are actually lying upon a surface. I first painted the background. As Limming suggests the use of a resist (see the transcription of the section titled "To make white letters in a black field"), I used a resist to protect the plant elements before applying the background color. I diluted the Spanish golden ochre and painted it in with a wide brush. This was very wet and caused severe buckling. While this would not present a problem in a period book, as the weight of all the pages pressed between boards would counteract the buckling, in a single page display piece, this is not a desirable outcome. In future, I will try another period method of painting in the background, and paint in small areas with a thicker paint. After painting in the background, I laid the flat colors for the plants, and, finished with that, began shading. There is no way to explain the whole process without writing several chapters, and so suffice it to say that I applied light or dark shades as needed, and then blended away the harsh line with a dampened brush. Once all the plants were painted, I outlined the plants with a crow quill and ink.
• Portrait Miniature--This technique utilizes many of the same paint approaches as the trompe l'oiel technique; however, the idea is not to fool the eye, but to make a miniature picture that presents an impression of real space, rather than the flat space seen in previous centuries. This requires a passing acquaintance with perspective and the tricks needed to convey the impressions of a real world. What little I know about such things came from observation of various portrait miniatures and the writings of DaVinci (15th c.), Viator (1505), and Hilliard (1600).

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