Buddhist manuscript book

Becky Cameron <becky_ann_cameron [at] hotmail__com> writes

>I am currently doing some work at the National Archives of Nepal in
>Kathmandu, and the conservation scientist and myself have been asked
>to treat a Buddhist manuscript book. The book is ...
>... written in gold and silver
>coloured ink on blue-black paper. ...
>... The central text area is
>coated a glossy black. ...
>
>1.  Exactly how this type of paper was traditionally made.

   "In the Far East indigo-coloured paper, inscribed in gold or
    silver, was... reserved for special religious texts. Examples
    dating from the ninth to the fifteenth centuries include Chinese
    and Korean Buddhist sutras copied in silver and gold calligraphy
    onto indigo-coloured paper scrolls or concertina booklets.
    Sometimes the paper was glazed...which turned the paper a
    lustrous midnight blue. Analysis has shown rice powder and
    gypsum to be glazing substances for such manuscripts, while
    burnishing tools could have been made of agate. Some modern
    artists and paper makers... combine gold and indigo in their
    work"

        Jenny Balfour-Paul.
        Indigo.
        British Museum Press, London, 1998

Sandrine Decoux
Paper Conservator
National Museums and Galleries of Wales


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                  Conservation DistList Instance 14:51
                  Distributed: Tuesday, April 3, 2001
                       Message Id: cdl-14-51-009
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