Did you know that mummy brown was one of the favorite paints of the Pre-Raphaelites? Next time you gaze on one of their horny, numinous canvases, just think of how this “rich brown bituminous pigment with good transparency, sitting between burnt umber and raw umber in tint” was “made from the flesh of mummies mixed with white pitch and myrrh.” It only went out of style when “fresh supplies of mummies diminished,” and even then it continued being sold into the mid-20th-century.
I sometimes wonder if there’s a parallel between how 18th and 19th century aristocrats treated mummies (see: mummia) and the cavalier but also quasi-religious way that our elites treat the flammable fluid fossils known as petroleum.
