BROWN, among dyers, painters, &c. a dusky colour inclining towards redness. Of this colour there are various shades or degrees, distinguished by different appellations; for instance, Spanish-brown, a sad-brown, a tawny-brown, the London brown, a clove-brown, &c.
Spanish-brown is a dark dull red, of a horse-flesh colour. It is an earth; and is of great use among painters, being generally used as the first and priming colour that they lay upon any kind of timber-work in house-painting. That which is of the deepest colour, and freest from stones, is the best. Though this is of a dirty brown colour, yet it is much used, not to colour any garment, unless it be an old man's gown; but to shadow vermilion, or to lay upon any dark ground behind a picture, or to shadow yellow berries in the darkest places, when you want lake, &c. It is best and brightest when burnt in the fire till it be red hot; although, if you would colour any hare, horse, dog, or the like, it should not be burnt; but, for other uses, it is best when it is burnt; as for colouring wood, posts, bodies of trees, or any thing else of wood, or any dark ground of a picture.