Mummy brown

Uncommon card · No. 151703

Mummy brown, also known as Egyptian brown or Caput Mortuum, is a shade of brown with good transparency, sitting between burnt umber and raw umber in tint. Its bituminous pigment was made from the flesh of mummies mixed with white pitch and myrrh. Mummy brown was extremely popular from the mid-eighteenth to the nineteenth centuries, predominantly with Western European artists. However, fresh supplies of mummies diminished, and artists were less satisfied with the pigment's permanency and finish. By 1915, demand had significantly declined. Suppliers ceased to offer it by the middle of the twentieth century. Mummy brown was one of the favourite colours of the Pre-Raphaelites. It was used by many artists, including Eugène Delacroix, William Beechey, Edward Burne-Jones, Lawrence Alma-Tadema, and Martin Drolling.

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