The history of ink began at the moment when man had a need to record and immortalize his observations. For a long time (from antiquity to mid 19^th century) ink was a separate writing material, most often fluid – it was stored in a special container, an inkwell, where the writer dipped the tip of a quill or a split reed.

Ancient Egyptians used ink to write on papyrus and stone. One of the most famous types of ink was “black ink” made from graphite or coal dust - soot mixed with water or the juice of the gall plant¹⁾.
In ancient China, thicker inks known as “ink” were used for writing and drawing. They were made from soot or tar mixed with water and animal glues such as gelatine.
Ancient Greece and Rome used ink made from graphite, soot, and other natural materials mixed with vegetable or mineral oils.
Iron-gall ink was invented in Europe circa the 12^th century. They were widely used until the mid-19^th century and were made from ink nuts (or galls), which are spherical, painful growths on oak leaves. According to some information, there are about fifty medieval recipes for the preparation of iron-gall ink, the color of which depended on the adding of copper and iron vitriol salts in various proportions. Gummiarabic was added to the pre-fabricated ink. The ink nuts were soaked in vinegar and then covered with iron sand, rust or iron vitriol salts; with some nuances, this technology of ink production lasted until the 19^th century.

The production technologies of the New Age, a historical period that began at the end of the 15^th century and lasted until the beginning of the 29^th century, concerned only printing inks; documents were still written with iron or carbon black ink. In general terms, the process of ink preparation looked like this: oil was poured into a metal cauldron and heated over a fire for a long time until the oil became sticky.

Additives were then added to the hot or cooled oil. This is how the oil base was obtained. Pigment was prepared separately. Blackness was given by soot, burnt wood and bone; ink of other colours was obtained by adding mineral and organic dyes to the base. The most popular red pigment was carmine, a dye obtained by treating cochineal insects.
Shades of orange were given by sienna, a natural mineral dye consisting mainly of iron oxides. Indigo dye was responsible for the blue color, which until the 19^th century was obtained from herbal substances, and later - Prussian blue pigment, obtained in the 18^th century by German chemists. Complex colours were obtained by mixing dyes – for example, a mixture of cochineal and Prussian blue pigment gave a violet color.

Alizarine ink was created in 1855 by Professor Christian August Leonhardi of Dresden, Germany, by adding alizarin dye (derived from the root of the madder plant) to conventional iron gall ink. This added an attractive coloration to the ink, which was quite popular until it was replaced by more modern chemical inks. Such inks were popular until the mid 20^th century, when they were replaced by more modern chemical inks. Synthetic dyes are cheap. It is enough to dilute them in plain water to get an ink substance. Aniline ink of purple color is a hit of all times and peoples.

Any ink at all times has contained, and does contain, the following types of basic components:

– solvent or dispersing medium;
– coloring agent (pigment in the case of pigment inks);
– modifiers (e.g. viscosity, water adhesion, integrity, preserving agents, etc.).

Modern printing inks are far removed from their predecessors in terms of physical and operational properties. Today, of course, it is no longer a mixture of soot and oil or decoctions of tree growths, but complex multi-component liquids with 4 to 20 elements. Ink for printers and different types of fountain pens, ballpoint and gel pens differ in composition.

Our new Photo Album features inkwells and writing instruments created by the talented artisans and jewellers in the 18^th–19^th centuries and presented in the museum Collection section “Decorative Arts and Jewellery”.

The museum Collection is currently hosting the exhibition “Handwriting of the Time. Cabinet accessories and postcards of the Silver Age”. The exhibition is devoted to Russian epistolary culture of the late 19^th –early 20^th centuries.

Traditionally, as part of the exhibition, the museum Collection has prepared a new excursion program, during which visitors will see a wide range of cabinet accessories – from fountain pens and inkwells to exquisite stamp collection boxes and business card holders. Such items were created by the best jewellers of that time: the firms of Carl Faberge, the Grachev Brothers, Pavel Buhre, Ivan Sazikov, Ivan Khlebnikov and many others.

¹⁾Galls (from the Latin galla, 'oak-apple') or cecidia (from the Greek kēkidion, anything gushing out) are a kind of swelling growth on the external tissues of plants.