Calcimine

Description

A water-based white paint that was used for coating interior walls and ceilings. Available as a powder, calcimine typically had a glue binder and one or more of the following white pigments; calcium carbonate (whiting), clay, zinc oxide. Occasionally other colors were added for tinting. Calcimine is not water-resistant. It was often used for temporary decoration and not for permanent painting.

Synonyms and Related Terms

kalsomine; tempera per imbiancare (It.)

Other Properties

Soluble in water.

Authority

• Ralph Mayer, A Dictionary of Art Terms and Techniques, Harper and Row Publishers, New York, 1969 (also 1945 printing)

• Dictionary of Building Preservation, Ward Bucher, ed., John Wiley & Sons, Inc., New York City, 1996

• Paint in America, Robert Moss (ed.), John Wiley & Sons, New York, 1994 Comment: M.Phillips, "A Victorian Trompe l'Oeil"

• G.S.Brady, Materials Handbook, McGraw-Hill Book Co., New York, 1971

• Richard S. Lewis, Hawley's Condensed Chemical Dictionary, Van Nostrand Reinhold, New York, 10th ed., 1993

• Random House, Webster's Encyclopedic Unabridged Dictionary of the English Language, Grammercy Book, New York, 1997

• The American Heritage Dictionary or Encarta, via Microsoft Bookshelf 98, Microsoft Corp., 1998

• Art and Architecture Thesaurus Online, http://www.getty.edu/research/tools/vocabulary/aat/, J. Paul Getty Trust, Los Angeles, 2000