CARMINE. A beautiful pinmeht prepared from cochineal, discovered accidentally by a Franciscan monk of Pisa, who, having formed an extract of cochineal with salt of tartar, for the purpose of employing it as a medicine, obtained a fine red precipitate on the addition of an acid. Homberg, in 1656, published a method for preparing it. The makers in some of the principal towns of Europe succeed in preparing different varieties of it of greater or less purity and lustre. Many of their processes are kept secret ; and although the chemistry of the art is well understood, yet there are certain details of manipulation, and an empirical knowledge of the effects of temperature, doubtless acquired after long experience and many failures, which confer on the carmines of some makers a greater lustre than on those of others. The use of carmine has of late years been extended to the manufacture of superfine red inks, of artificial flowers, and to silk-dyeing. Carmine is the finest
red colour which the painter possesses. It is chiefly used in miniature painting and in water colours. It is made in large quantities in Paris. Carmine is one of those colours called lakes, a term applied to certain colouring substances which behave like acids, and combine by precipitation with a white earthy basis, usually alumina. Carmine is the richest and purest portion of the colouring matter of cochineal, isolated in the manner here alluded to. Various imitations of carmine are pre pared for the use of those who exhibit rouge on their cheeks. French carmine is superior to that of English manufacture, and the superiority is said to depend on the influence of light on its formation and precipitation ; the clear sky of the south of France being more favourable for the process than the more hazy atmosphere of England.—Tainlinson.