Mummy Brown: The Disturbing True Story of Why a Popular Paint Color Was Made from Grinding Up Actual Human Mummies

Imagine you're a painter in the 19th century, reaching for your favorite tube of rich, transparent brown. You love it for the incredible depth and warmth it adds to shadows and flesh tones. Now, imagine discovering that this beautiful pigment was made from the ground-up, resin-soaked remains of ancient Egyptian people. This isn't a work of fiction; it's the bizarre and true history of "Mummy Brown," a once-popular paint color with a macabre secret. This blog post unwraps the story of this ghoulish pigment, exploring why it was created, how it became a staple on artists' palettes, and what led to its eventual demise.

What Exactly Was Mummy Brown?

Mummy Brown was a pigment sold from the 16th century all the way into the mid-20th century. It was a bituminous pigment, meaning it was derived from a substance like asphalt or pitch. What made it unique, however, was its primary ingredient: the ground powder of authentic ancient Egyptian mummies.

The process involved taking whole mummies—both human and sometimes feline—and grinding them into a fine dust. This powder, which contained both human remains and the bitumen and resins used in the embalming process, was then mixed with a binder like white pitch and myrrh to create the final paint. The resulting color was a rich, warm brown, highly prized by artists for its transparency, which made it perfect for creating glazes, shading, and realistic flesh tones. Its texture and quality, however, could be wildly inconsistent, depending entirely on the specific mummy used.

From Medicine to the Artist's Palette

So, why would anyone think to grind up a mummy for paint? The answer lies in the strange intersection of early European medicine and a cultural craze known as "Egyptomania."

A Cure-All Called 'Mummia'

Long before it was used for art, powdered mummy was a staple in European apothecaries. From the Middle Ages onward, a substance called mummia was prescribed as a medicinal cure-all for everything from headaches and bruises to epilepsy. Initially, mummia referred to the natural bitumen that seeped from the "Mummy Mountain" in Persia. However, as demand outstripped supply, apothecaries turned to a more literal source: the bitumen-soaked bandages and bodies of Egyptian mummies. For centuries, a thriving and gruesome trade existed, supplying Europe with countless mummified bodies to be ground into medicine.

The Rise of Egyptomania

By the 18th and 19th centuries, Napoleon's campaigns in Egypt sparked a massive wave of public fascination with all things ancient Egyptian. Mummies were no longer just medicine; they were artifacts, curiosities, and even party favors. "Mummy unwrapping parties" became fashionable social events for the Victorian elite. In this context, where mummies were already being commodified and disrespected, transitioning them from a medicinal powder to an artist's pigment was not a significant leap. The same properties that made mummia valuable to apothecaries—the resin and bitumen—were already familiar components in paint-making.

The Decline of a Ghoulish Color

Mummy Brown was used by many esteemed artists, particularly the Pre-Raphaelites, with painters like Lawrence Alma-Tadema and Edward Burne-Jones reportedly having it on their palettes. So what caused this popular, albeit morbid, pigment to disappear?

Its downfall was due to a combination of practical and ethical concerns:

• Inconsistent Quality: No two mummies were embalmed in exactly the same way, leading to unpredictable paint quality. Some batches were smooth and rich, while others were gritty and inferior.
• Dwindling Supply: The supply of authentic ancient mummies began to run out. Manufacturers were sometimes sold fakes, such as the bodies of recently executed criminals that were artificially "mummified" to meet demand.
• A Moral Awakening: Most importantly, artists began to realize the true nature of their materials. The most famous account comes from the artist Edward Burne-Jones. According to his wife's journal, upon learning that his favorite brown paint was made from actual human beings, he was so horrified that he ran to his studio, retrieved his tube of Mummy Brown, and insisted it be given a proper burial in his garden.

This growing sense of ethical unease spelled the end for the pigment. In 1964, the London-based paint manufacturer C. Roberson and Co. famously announced they had officially run out of mummies, marking the effective end of Mummy Brown's production.

A Dark Legacy on Canvas

The story of Mummy Brown is a fascinating and unsettling chapter in art history. It serves as a stark reminder of a time when historical artifacts and human remains were viewed not with reverence, but as exploitable commodities. The pigment's journey from an ancient tomb, through a European apothecary, and onto a priceless canvas reveals how scientific understanding, cultural values, and artistic practices have profoundly changed. The next time you gaze at the deep, luminous shadows in a 19th-century painting, you might just be looking at the last remnants of a truly unique and disturbing color.