Rabbit-skin glue

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Edit this article here.

Rabbit-skin glue is a sizing that also acts as an adhesive. It is essentially refined rabbit collagen, and was originally used as an ingredient in traditional gesso.

In traditional oil painting as practiced by the "old masters", rabbit-skin glue was used to coat the canvas. This is necessary because the linseed oil that forms the base of most oil paint contains an acid, lineolic acid, that will over time destroy the canvas fibers. Rabbit skin glue in a powdered form is poured into water that had been raised to a boil and removed from further heat. After the mixture has been allowed to form a gel, it is spread thoroughly over the canvas that has already been placed on the stretcher. When the glue dries, it tightens the canvas and gives it the appearance of a drum. After this has been allowed to dry, an oil-based primer is then applied. When the oil primer has itself dried (which can take weeks), the oil painter has an excellent surface upon which to paint.

It should be noted that this rabbit-skin glue ground is only appropriate for use under oil paint. Acrylic-based media will flake off of a canvas prepared with rabbit-skin glue and are therefore not appropriate.

Many modern manufacturers of prestretched canvases use an acrylic gesso. Although this fact is not well publicised, it is a fact that oil paint placed on top of an acrylic gesso will not be able to firmly attach itself to the acrylic gesso and, following a period of decades, will flake off.

Rabbit-skin glue has also been used in the construction of the bellows of concertinas.