The Voynich Ninja

There's a large beige stain running vertically on f93r.  We might be able to infer something about when colors were added to the manuscript, in particular whether it was before or after they were placed in their present order, from examining it.  Some things to consider:

1) Is this stain the same substance that has been used to color in the "inflorescence" of the plant on the same page?  It looks that way from the scans.  Maybe someone who has seen the VMS in person could comment on this.

2) It looks like the stain started at the bottom and flowed "upward", eventually running off the top of the page.  As it did so, it looks like it picked up some green pigment from the leaves of the plant and transferred it along into the upper part of the stain.  From this, as well as looking at how the stain overlaps the green leaves, it seems clear that the green must have already been present when the stain was formed.  But was the green still wet when the stain was formed, or could the pigment transfer have occurred when the green was already dry?

3) Were the pages already in their present order when this stain was formed?  This is obviously an important question, but the answer to me is not entirely clear.  There does in fact appear to be a small stain at the top edge of f94r, f95r, etc. corresponding to the location where the You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. stain runs off the page.  However, these stains do not, to my eye, appear to have a beige color.  Also there seems to be some water damage to the top edge of You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. that may not be related to the beige stain.  So perhaps this damage to the top edges of these folios is unrelated to the beige stain, and just coincidentally happens to be in the same spot, unlikely as that may seem.

Well, I'd like to know what others think about this.  Obviously if the stain is one of the colors used in the illustration and the stain formed after the pages were in their present order, then at least the beige (and possibly the green) were added while the pages were in their present order.  On the other hand, if the manuscript was not in its present order when the stain was formed then the beige and green must be original.  If the stain is not in fact the beige used in the illustration, and if the green pigment could have transferred into the stain while the green was already dry, then perhaps we cannot draw any conclusions from this.

I thought long and found only one explanation could be as a formed as a the long narrow blotch on f93r. See sketch. Drawings made on an incline the desk. The paint was very fluid. The artist has painted the head of "sunflower", put a brush on jar of paint and distracted from the work. Due to the capillary effect, (which is created by the hairs of brush) along  the handle of the tassel  flew down on the sheet, as long as the hair ceased not to touch the paint. Such an effect is observed, when brew disposable tea bag when the water flows down onto the table, by the filament  of sachet . 

The You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. (missing page) affected the darkening of the middle  of blots.

That sketch alone deserves a thank you. I see no problems with that explanation. That would probably mean the MS was upside down on the desk, which seems logical given the top location of the flower. 

II'm not sure if this allows us to say something about the green ink. It seems like the brown ink was so watery that it could make wet as well as dry green ink run.

It's directly before two missing folios (91 & 92), so it's possible that whatever was spilt mainly landed on the bifolio opposite and caused them to be ruined, or so badly damaged that they were later discarded. So it could be some sort of transfer from those pages.
But a great explanation by Wladimir!

(05-03-2016, 12:16 PM)Sam G Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.There's a large beige stain running vertically on f93r.  We might be able to infer something about when colors were added to the manuscript, in particular whether it was before or after they were placed in their present order, from examining it. ...

2) It looks like the stain started at the bottom and flowed "upward", eventually running off the top of the page.  As it did so, it looks like it picked up some green pigment from the leaves of the plant and transferred it along into the upper part of the stain.  From this, as well as looking at how the stain overlaps the green leaves, it seems clear that the green must have already been present when the stain was formed. 

I agree with this analysis.  

[attachment=12769]

For this and other reasons, I believe that the "paints" used by the Painter were quite runny, more like inks.  Most of the "painting" appears to have been done with a broad-tipped quill rather than with a brush.  One can see his individual paint strokes (~1 mm wide) on the root (Q), and also on the leaves, near the binding gutter (P).  On other places, especially when he wanted a mottled texture, he used a very crude brush, like a twig with a chewed tip or similar.

As I see it, the Painter accidentally overturned the bottle of yellow ink when he was painting the flower.  That was after the text and the plant outline had been drawn, in the usual brown ink, and after the leaves had been painted green.   

The "after" there may have been anywhere between minutes and centuries.  Since this point does not make much difference for this post, I will not delve into it.

As Sam G proposes, the ink flowed from the spill point (A) towards the north (logical top) edge of the page (B) in an almost straight line.  That seems to indicate that, at the time, the folio was significantly tilted, with the south (logical bottom) edge higher than the north edge.  That would be strange if he was writing text, but since he was painting the flower, it seems even natural that he would turn the page upside down, to bring the flower closer.  The tilt then would be that of his writing-desk.

And that may also explain why there is no sign of that yellow "paint" on the following pages: because of the tilt, the paint that flowed past the north edge (B) dripped onto the desk, away from the book.

And the tilt also makes the tipping of the bottle less surprising...

As soon as that happened, the Painter righted the bottle and scrambled to get a cloth or blotting paper.  Meanwhile the spilled ink continued to flow downwards, towards the north edge.  As it did so, it softened and lifted some of the green paint and some of the ink from the text and the plant outline.  Before it could be mopped up, it carried these bits of ink and green away over a distance of ~3 cm (X).
Some of the ink became deposited along the edges of that part of the spill, creating dark brown lines along the stain's perimeter

The Painter then mopped up the spilled paint.  If the spill had happened on blank vellum, he could have washed it away with a damp cloth.  But here he could not do that, because it would have washed away the text too.  But he may have done so, imperfectly, in the north margin, above the text; that would explain the "water" stain in that area (J,K). 

Sometime later someone restored the words that had been somewhat erased by the paint.  Again, the "later" may have been minutes or centuries, we can't tell.  This last person could have been the Painter himself or someone else.  (But I don't think that the Painter would have been able to do that, given how crude his work generally is.) 

Makes sense?

Quote: But was the green still wet when the stain was formed, or could the pigment transfer have occurred when the green was already dry?

If the green paint was water-based, like gouache (tempera) or watercolor, it would not be water-resistant, and would have been softened by the liquid yellow ink. 

It is possible that the green paint, specifically, was not water-based, but an organic copper salt (what McCrone called "resinate"), like "copper soap", dissolved in some organic solvent like turpentine or linseed oil.  That might explain why the green-colored areas, specifically, are so visible from the other side of the vellum. It might also explain the way the green paint got deposited along the edges of the stain.  In that case, the green paint would have to be still fresh.  But it is unclear whether the stain would have acquired the greenish hue between lines 7 and 17. 

All the best, --stolfi

What seems interesting is that the painter didn't even attempt removing the paint at least in the empty area next to the root, where I think it would be trivial to wipe it off with a wet cloth? It looks like the painter didn't care, maybe the crude way the manuscript is painted is not due to the lack of skill, but due to the lack of enthusiasm?

For all we know, the ink was knocked over while the painter wasn't actively working on the page. By himself or another person moving around the room, or even a cat.

When the 2008 documentary was produced, the team reconstructed some of the pages of the MS using parchment, self-made iron gall ink and self-made pigments. What became obvious is that the ink and the paint behaved in quite different ways. 

It was not difficult to add ink to the parchment. It would quickly get dark and relatively dry. 

The paint would tend to form puddles, basically 'lie' on top of the parchment and take forever to be absorbed by the parchment, let alone get dry. The attempt to recreate You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. was not considered a success. Lots of paint had to be dabbed away to get even to this:

[attachment=12773]

(01-12-2025, 10:57 PM)oshfdk Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.What seems interesting is that the painter didn't even attempt removing the paint at least in the empty area next to the root, where I think it would be trivial to wipe it off with a wet cloth? It looks like the painter didn't care, maybe the crude way the manuscript is painted is not due to the lack of skill, but due to the lack of enthusiasm?

Indeed, I think the Painter showed both a lack of skill (he probably did not work on the Heures de Berry) and little regard for the manuscript.

As for the stain in the blank area below the text, It seems to me that mopped up the ink there just as he did over the text.  Whatever remained would have dried very quickly.  Given that he had to leave the stain over the text area, it is not surprising that he left that lower part as well.  

All the best, --stolfi

(01-12-2025, 11:18 PM)Koen G Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.For all we know, the ink was knocked over while the painter wasn't actively working on the page. By himself or another person moving around the room, or even a cat.

Maybe... But the longer the spilled paint sat over the inked text and drawings and the green-painted area, the worse the damage to them would have been.  Since the damage seems to have been small -- only a bit of pigment carried away to (X), I would guess that the paint was mopped up a few minutes after the spill.

All the best, --stolfi