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I'm looking for a better phrasing for use on a poster describing a scientific project. In this project, we will examine recipes of varnishes and lacquers from old recipe books. We will follow these recipes to recreate the varnishes, and paint these on small glass plaques (the so-called mock-up objects) suitable for chemical analysis.

Our initial phrase was 'construction of mock-up objects by following historical recipes', but this does not really describe what a mock-up object is very well. Another attempt was 'reconstruction of historical recipes as mock-up objects'.

This sounds wrong because we are not 'reconstructing' the recipe as such, it is already there. Rather, we are 'reapplying' or 're-executing' the recipe, but neither of those words sound right.

I think I'm looking for a better re... word, but other suggestions are very welcome.

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  • It's clear from the answers that I should have mentioned that the phrase I'm looking for is not going to be the title of the poster, but the text for a bullet point in the 'method' section.
    – Davy Herben
    Jul 2, 2014 at 7:48

3 Answers 3

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As you describe this project, the objects you are constructing are not mockups, which are simulacra of objects making some aspect or aspects visible while ignoring others. These objects appear to be of incidental not focal interest—they are merely vehicles for presenting the varnishes to audiences and analysts. I think you want to leave them out of the title altogether.

What you are doing that is of focal interest is mixing varnishes and lacquers according to historically attested recipes. You are

Recreating Historical Varnishes

Historically, as you may see from the definitions in OED 1 (1901), the word lacquer was understood as a kind of varnish, one made with lac or other oriental resin; so if your recipes are pre-20th-century it would be proper to use varnish alone.

For lagniappe: you might consider accompanying your glass slides with something that would display your varnishes in a more relevant context—for instance, on identical slips of wood, applied according to historical directions.

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  • This is the answer I was looking for. Recreating the historical lacquers is indeed what we are doing. I won't need the phrase for the title, but as a bullet point text in the description of the method being followed. The mockups are worth mentioning in this context. Lacquer is the correct term here. The recipes we will be following are for European lacquers, complex layerings of different varnishes created from natural resins. These where used by Europen craftsmen to mimic the look of the imported oriental lacquer objects, much like what has happened with Chinese porcelain.
    – Davy Herben
    Jul 2, 2014 at 8:18
  • FYI, what we want to do in this projects is to build a database of chemical 'fingerprints' for different resins, varnishes and lacquers, before and after degradation through artificial aging. Comparing samples from real lacquer museum objects against this database, we hope to be able to determine what ingredients, or even recipes, were used in the making of those objects. Thank you for providing the missing link, and for making me look up the word lagniappe :)
    – Davy Herben
    Jul 2, 2014 at 8:18
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Your project sounds to me like an example of experimental archaeology (you can find descriptions at Wikipedia and UCD Today, among other places). There are experimental archaeologists, like Patrick McGovern and Sally Grainger, who specialize in following ancient recipes. I don't know if they have a special name for what they do, though. You could try asking them, or other researchers in the field, directly!

Since you're worried that "reconstructing historical recipes" might read as reconstructing the recipes themselves, rather than the varnishes the recipes were used to produce, perhaps you'd prefer to write about "reconstrucing historical varnishes."

If you're just looking for a pithy title, rather than something to use in body text, might I suggest something like "Experimental Archaeology of Varnishes and Lacquers"?

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  • Sorry see below
    – Pete855217
    Jul 1, 2014 at 15:00
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I think you've struck a problem because you've forgotten to mention the whole point of the exercise in the title. If it's chemical analysis, how about 'Chemical analysis of old recipe varnishes and lacquers' or 'Recreating old recipe varnishes and lacquers for chemical analysis using slides (or whatever)'? It pays to step back and think about what you're doing from the perspective of someone who's never seen the poster before.

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