Plants and Pigments
This Codex Badiano, an herbal manuscript from 1552, includes illustrations and details of Nahua medicinal plants. Written in both Nahuatl and Latin, it shows how Indigenous knowledge was translated into European ways of organizing and understanding the world. This particular page shows a prickly pear cactus, of genus Opuntia, with its Nahuatl name tlatocnochtli written above the plant. This cactus is the host plant of the parasitic scale insect Dactylopius coccus.
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The Dactylopius coccus insect naturally produces carminic acid, which is extracted to produce cochineal dye. Produced in colonial Mexico for export, the dye was prized by merchants, artists, and dyers as the “perfect red”. Beyond Mexico, commercial producers used cochineal extract, along with binding agents like linseed oil, to create red pigments such as carmine lake, shown in this paint samplel. For more on cochineal, see the Harvard Museums of Science and Culture’s online exhibit, “How Mexico Made the World See Red.”
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Thaddeus Haenke’s chart, made during the Malaspina expedition to the Americas and the Philippines (1789-1794), created a numerical system for matching colors of New World plants. It was essentially a “paint by numbers” method to record numerical color observations in the field that could later be filled in with the respective pigment, thereby accurately reproducing plant colors in natural history illustrations. Cochineal is the basis for several of the carmine red pigments on the second row of this color chart—the dried extract of a New World insect used to classify American plants.
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Natural history illustrations were accompanied by another form of capturing nature: dried plant specimens. But how could these be safely transported? This vasculum was used to preserve botanical specimens collected in the field, before they could be pressed, dried, and mounted on herbarium sheets. Identifying plant species often required precise measurements of size, color, and other physical attributes.