Today the painting of fabric is called the dying of fabric , but I am using Pliny’s term. He concludes chapter 42 of Book 35 [of his Natural History ] by teaching us the method by which the Egyptians would paint linen or, to put it another way, would produce painted linens. Let us turn first to the passage in Latin, which is very curious: [1]

Pingunt et vestes in Ægypto inter pauca mirabili genere, candida vela postquam attrivere illinentes non coloribus, sed colorem sorbentibus medicamentis. Hoc cum fecêre, non apparet in velis; sed in cortinam pigmenti ferventis mersa, post momentum extrahuntur picta. Mirumque cum sit unus in cortina colos, ex illo alius atque alius fit in veste, accipientis medicamenti qualitate mutatus. Nec postea ablui potest; ita cortina non dubiè confusura colores, si pictos acciperet, digerit ex uno, pingitque dum coquit. Et adustae vestes firmiores fiunt, quam si non urerentur . Here is the translation:

This method of dying fabric is used in Europe and the Orient. It is assumed that India originally learned this secret from Egypt. After having been the center of the arts and sciences, the resource of Asia and Europe due to the fertility of its land, the best climate due to its healthy air, a world created by the multitude of the country’s natives and the affluence of foreigners, today Egypt is nothing more than a plagued land and a retreat for bandits. [3] This is due to its having lost from view the arts and sciences that created its happiness and its glory; a palpable example that would alone suffice to confound an odious paradox put forward during our time, if it merited being seriously refuted. China is also familiar with the practice of dying fabrics, where we have found it established from the time of its discovery. [4] The more one delves into the arts, at least in regards to painting, the more one observes that the ancients were cognizant of nearly everything that we know and practice today. [5] Mémoire des Inscriptions, vol. XXV. [6]

Notes

1. The full text of Pliny the Elder’s (23-79 CE) encyclopedic Natural History (published 77-79 CE) is available on ARTFL in both Latin and English. I have translated Jaucourt’s French, as it differs slightly from ARTFL’s English translation.

2. Mordants, typically an inorganic oxide, create a chemical bond between dye compounds and the fabric, thereby permanently fixing the color onto the cloth. For example, dye made from the Madder plant can yield black, purple, brown, and bright as well as dull reds when used with certain mordants. Therefore, a fabric dyer can simply apply the appropriate mordants to different areas of the cloth, then soak it in madder dye, and the different colors will appear all at once due to chemical reactions with the various mordants. See Gillian Moss, Printed textiles 1760-1860, in the collection of the Cooper-Hewitt Museum, the Smithsonian Institution's National Museum of Design (Washington, DC: Smithsonian Institution, 1987), 6-8.

3. Egypt was conquered by the Ottoman Turks (also known as the Mamluks) in 1517. Europeans saw this “barbarian” takeover as heralding Egypt’s decline as a cultural force. This view provided the intellectual justification propagated by Napoleon in support of his 1797 Egyptian invasion. See Egypte (5:434) and Egyptiens ou plûtôt Bohémiens (5:438).

4. Jaucourt is also responsible for the article Chiner (3:339) which describes the production of colored silk through both weaving and dying.

5. On European imitations of Indian printed fabrics, see Toiles peintes imitées des indiennes qui se fabriquent en Europe (16:374).

6. Jaucourt’s source is volume 25 of the Memoires of the Académie des Inscriptions et Belles Lettres, 188-89. He borrows its French translation (by the Comte de Caylus) verbatim, but the majority of the commentary in the Encyclopédie entry is Jaucourt’s.