Milk Paint is Older Than You Thought

[Richard Line]

South Africans used milk-based paint 49,000 years ago - This is according to an article from the Scientific America daily news site. Here's a link if your interested - http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2015/06/150630202044.htm

Okay, maybe not of major interest to our immediate use of milk paint, still I found it interesting.

[george wilson]

But,apparently Americans didn't use it until the 19th. C.

[Bill Houghton]

I wonder if they argued about pins first vs. tails first, too?

Thanks. I sent it along to an archaeologist friend who's always sending us links to stuff she finds. Nice to find something before she did.

[bridger berdel]

milk paint seems like one of those things that would inevitably be discovered by any society that practices animal husbandry, has interior surfaces and a desire to decorate them.

[Mel Fulks]

George has friendships and working access to excellent sources. But the big gaps in the use of things that go way back are puzzling. Especially the things , as Bridger points out, that would seem to lend themselves to being discovered by accident. The every day humble things that were likely to be coated with simple available materials got worn out and tossed.

[george wilson]

We have plenty of humble things in the large collections in Williamsburg. But no 18th. C. objects painted with milk base paint. It seems strange to me,too,but the curators and master cabinet maker says they only used oil based paints at that time.

I'm not an expert on milk based paint by any means. Musical instruments were the area of my expertise as far as objects that had finishes. They all had oil base varnishes,though I know shellac was well known even in the 17th. C. in Britain. There was a treatise written in that time(By whom I have forgotten),where the bad characteristics of shellac,such as losing its gloss,was mentioned. By the way,I have never had seedlac finishes lose their gloss. I have things I finished with seedlac 30 years ago,and they are still fine. My favorite is Siam seedlac.

[bridger berdel]

Once they had access to the tech to make oil paint i'm not surprised that milk paint was abandoned. Especially if there were times of famine or something like cheese making became an important economic activity.

[Stewie Simpson]

COMMERCIAL PAINT
Over the next 200 to 300 years, the old water-based milk paint, as well as the newer oil paint remained relatively unchanged. Artists mixed their own paints, as did house painters and furniture makers. Recipes for oil paints were closely guarded secrets. Milk paint continued to be made the way it had been for thousands of years before.
In Colonial America, as earlier in Europe, itinerant painters roamed the countryside, carrying pigments with them, which could be mixed with a farmer's or householder's own milk and lime. Often, the itinerant painter would be a tinker or farrier, or have some trade in addition to his knowledge of paint. Practically every household had their own cow or goat, and each community had its own lime pit. Even though there exist many examples of early American furniture that was painted with some form of oil paint, the look associated most widely with the country homes and furniture of the 17th, 18th, and 19th centuries is that of the soft velvety, rich colors of milk paint.
This scene doesn't change much until after the Civil War. In 1868, the first patent was given for the metal paint can with its tightly fitting top. With this development came the commercial oil paint industry. For the first time, paint could be manufactured in great mass, packaged in the new patented cans and shipped to stores throughout the country.
But this kind of operation does not lend itself to the use of milk paint. Made from natural milk protein, it will spoil just like whole milk. Therefore, from the very beginning of the commercial oil paint industry, up until 1935, the only paint sold commercially was oil-based paint, to which was added lead, mildewcides, and other poisonous additives. Other types of casein paints were developed that could not be considered milk paint. Casein was mixed with formaldehyde, or with ammonia, or with borax, to create much different types of paint recipes. Around 1935, a new water-based casein(milk protein) paint was developed with the use of synthetic rubber and styrene. This was called Kem-Tone, the first latex paint, which met with great commercial success. http://www.milkpaint.com/about_history.html

[Richard Line]

Stewie, Thanks for the brief history of paint. A lot there I didn't know, and good to learn.

[george wilson]

The above taken right off the Milk Paint site on the internet. It it biased towards milk based paint? And yet,curators and historic area craftsmen insist that oil based paints were used in the 18th. C.,with milk based paints coming into vogue in the 19th. C..

Milk based paints were certainly known in different places,but other things I have just read stated that the use of milk based paints fell into decline after the invention of oil based paints in the 1400's. One source in France mentioned that you had to be careful to not even let your clothes brush against milk based painted walls or it would start rubbing off.

But,I'm not a paint expert. All I know is what I was told while working in Williamsburg. I had made a couple of wig boxes and had thought it would be nice to paint them with milk based paint. Mack Headley told me they only used oil based paints during the period.

I did gain considerable expertise in the making of early oil based varnishes,which I researched and made for several years because of its importance in violin making. The director used to get on my case about the amount of time I spent on the subject,in fact. But,he was not a violin maker.

[Phil Thien]

The above taken right off the Milk Paint site on the internet. It it biased towards milk based paint? And yet,curators and historic area craftsmen insist that oil based paints were used in the 18th. C.,with milk based paints coming into vogue in the 19th. C..

I believe it was oil-based first, and then milk paint after that.

In fact, I believe it was the California territory that refused to allow Homestead Depots to sell oil-based paints ("thou dost offend by senses with thine foul odor") that ultimately resulted in Homestead Depot deciding to drop oil based paints altogether and just carry their new Beer-Premium-Primer-Plus-Milk-Paint at all locations.

[george wilson]

That's what the experts in the museum said,Phil. I made hardly any objects that needed painting,myself. Everything I made,except for a few odd cases like the wig boxes were varnished.

An interesting fact: The owner of Wetherburn's Tavern in Williamsburg must have been a tightwad,or in financial straits. He hired CHILDREN to paint the tavern Spanish red in the 18th. C..

This is a large,2 story(and TALL stories) building. It would be a big job even for professional painters today. It is amazing what was expected of children in those days. Of course,I got a good dose of that myself when I was young. One reason why my skeleton is worn out.

[Phil Thien]

Well oil based paints were typically just linseed oil with a dryer and pigment, no? The article linked above makes it seem like milk paint was used because the raw materials were abundantly available, but the same could be said for oil-based. And at least when it comes to exterior use, the oil-based product will protect exposed materials, a milk paint needs to be top-coated to protect from moisture.

[Warren Mickley]

There is so much fantasy and fiction in that paint company copy it is hard to know what to say. Consider this:

"In Colonial America, as earlier in Europe, itinerant painters roamed the countryside, carrying pigments with them, which could be mixed with a farmer's or householder's own milk and lime. Often, the itinerant painter would be a tinker or farrier, or have some trade in addition to his knowledge of paint."

Can you image a paint salesman/farrier loading up his wagon with pigments and then throwing on a forge, bellows, an anvil and iron bars and charcoal, for a journey into the countryside?

Back in the 20th century guys used to paint reproductions with "milk paint" (somehow they did not use milk like the old days) and then top coat with oil or varnish to protect and "bring out the color". If the 18th century guys had linseed oil, they would have just added the pigments to the oil and bypassed the milk.

[george wilson]

It do sound a bit poetic,do it not?