"Incarnadine"

"April 26.  Got some more red enamel paint (red, to my mind being the best colour), and painted the coal scuttle, and the backs of our Shakespeare, the binding of which had almost worn out.

April 27. Painted the bath red, and was delighted with the result.  Sorry to say Carrie was not; in fact, we had a few words about it.  She said I ought to have consulted her, and she had never heard of such a thing as a bath being painted red.  I replied: 'It's merely a matter of taste.'
….

April 29, Sunday.  Woke up with a fearful headache and strong symptoms of a cold.  Carrie, with a perversity which is just like her, said it was 'painter's colic', and was the result of my having spent the last few days with my nose over a paint-pot.  I told her firmly that I knew a great deal better what was the matter with me than she did.  I had got a chill, and decided to have as bath as hot as I could bear it.  Bath ready -- could scarcely bear it so hot.  I persevered, and got in; very hot, but very acceptable.  I lay still for some time.

On moving my hand above the surface of the water, I experienced the greatest fright I ever received in the whole course of my life; for imagine my horror on discovering my hand, as I thought, full of blood.  My first thought was that I had ruptured an artery and was bleeding to death, and should be discovered, later on, looking like a second Marat, as I remember seeing him in Maadame Tussaud's.  My second thought was to ring the bell, but remembered there was no bell to ring.  My third was,  that there was nothing but the enamel paint, which had dissolved in the boiling water.  I stepped out of the bath, perfectly red all over, resembling the Red Indians I have seen depicted at an East-End theatre.  I determined not to say a word to Carrie, but to tell Farmerson to come on Monday and paint the bath white."

The Diary of a Nobody  George & Weedon Grossmith

Maiolica painters

"The invetriatura now having been thus applied and the pieces allowed to dry are now ready to receive the painting.  This is executed with coarser and finer brushes or penelli, made of goats' and asses' hair, and the finest of the whiskers of rats or mice;  the ordinary wares being held in the left hand or on the left knee and the finer in wooden cases, lined with tow, to prevent rubbing.  A different brush must be used for each colour.  The painters generally sit round a circular table suspended from the ceiling so that it may turn round, and upon this the different pigments are placed."

Maiolica  C. Drury E. Fortnum   (referring to Cipriani Piccolpasso's Li Tre Libri dell'Arte del Vasaio
or 'The Three Books of the Potter's Art') 

Oxgodby painter

"By this time, the apex of the arch and its left-hand side were almost uncovered.  The notabilities had been given notable treatment; he'd even used gold leaf on the clothes and astonishingly, cinnabar to gladden lips and cheeks of the supporting  seraphic cast.  In fact, here and there, the willingness of whoever had put up the money had gone to his head and he'd been staggeringly prodigal with the expensive reds and almost prohibitively priced leaf.

But once he'd begun ( as I was now beginning) on the damned souls dithering on the brink of the flames or hurtling headlong into them, he'd switched to the cheap stuff, red earth and iron oxides.  Even so, this concentration of similars saved it from odious comparison with the no-expense-spared Michael and his bloodthirsty furnace hands,  And he'd compensated too by his vigorous treatment: he'd really warmed to the work.  Up at the top he'd done an extremely competent job, well, more than that, because he was a master of his trade and couldn't have done anything but a great job.  But now -- coming to this lower slope, he'd thrown in the lot -- art and heart.

....Who was he! I couldn't even name him."

A Month in the Country   J. L. Carr