Cuttlefish in and around Ms. Fr. 640

Maia Donald

Spring 2022

Cuttlebone, the hard interior shell of the cuttlefish, has a long history of human use. While today it is primarily consumed as a calcium supplement by pet birds and reptiles, cuttlebone was long ago used as a polishing powder, casting material, and carving medium. Both Aristotle and Pliny offer detailed examinations of cuttlefish in their more general overview of cephalopods.¹ Its near continuous use in the arts, especially in casting, indicates that cuttlebone has historically been an abundant material. Paradoxically, for such a widely used material, there is little reference to its procurement and trade either in historical sources or secondary literature.

Casting in cuttlebone features prominently in Ms. Fr. 640. The author-practitioner instructs his readers to cut the bone in half, smooth it down with charcoal to coat it, and then press an object into the bone. Next, we are to pour a metal alloy of equal parts lead and tin into the bone to cast the object (fols. 91r-v). Later in the manuscript, the author-practitioner warns against casting with metals that are too hot, which one can tell by dipping a piece of paper into the heated alloy. The best metals for casting in cuttlebone are lead and tin, although gold and silver are also suitable but “it never comes out very neat” (fol. 145r). For more detail and a replication of these recipes, see Boyd, Palframan, and Smith, Molding with Cuttlefish Bone.²

Figure 1. Casting of tin in the cuttlefish bone mold of a ring. Emily Boyd and Jef Palframan, 2014. Note the gate at the top through which the metal was poured and the vents. Also visible are the pegs that hold the two halves of the mold together. © Making and Knowing Project (CC BY-NC-SA).

The species of cuttlefish referenced in Ms. Fr. 640 is most likely the common or European cuttlefish, Sepia officinalis. Native to the Mediterranean, North, and Baltic Seas (see Fig. 2), this is a relatively abundant sea creature related to the octopus and squid. The cuttlefish is unique because of its cuttlebone, a lightweight, porous, bony material that cuttlefish use to regulate buoyancy, akin to an internal shell.

Figure 2. Map of the distribution of the common cuttlefish, Sepia officinalis.3

How was cuttlebone acquired and transported for casting and goldsmithing around the time of the author-practitioner of Ms. Fr. 640 in the sixteenth century? Sources on this are unfortunately scant, which is telling in itself. Today, cuttlefish are largely caught as fishing by-products in drag nets. For this reason, I think it is worth taking some time to explore early modern fishing practices in Europe. Fishing practices varied significantly by nationality and by the type of fish targeted. Types of fishing ranged from subsistence, to local procurement for local markets, to market-oriented merchant fishing that varied seasonally.⁴ Dieppe in northern France was a major fishing port on the North Sea, one of the regions to which cuttlefish are native. It is more likely, however, that cuttlebone was sourced from cuttlefish washing up on beaches after a storm, as is commonly seen today.⁵ This sort of informal economy might explain the lack of sources around cuttlebone acquisition. If cuttlebone was abundant and easily collected, there likely was no record-keeping of its collection.

The paradox of cuttlebone’s absence in the written record is heightened by the fact that cuttlebone is still valuable today as a material uniquely suited to metal casting due to its physical properties. Unaltered, cuttlebone is a long oval shape about two inches high, seven to eight inches long, and three inches across at its widest point. It is quite light. The exterior is hard and bumpy, but cutting it open along its length reveals a softer, chalky interior with ridged lines in concentric circles (see Figs. 3 and 4). It is in this yielding interior that impressions for casting can be made. After impressing an object into the interior, the object is removed and the two halves are pressed back together and filled with molten metal. Cuttlebone is able to withstand high temperatures, although the author-practitioner of Ms. Fr. 640 warns against overheating the metal alloy.

Figure 3. The author-practitioner’s sketch of cuttlefish bone patterning, Ms. Fr. 640, fol. 145r. Bibliothèque nationale de France, Paris. Source: gallica.bnf.fr.

Figure 4. Cuttlefish bone pattern (interior). Maia Donald, 2022. © Making and Knowing Project (CC BY-NC-SA).

The absence of cuttlefish in the historical record also comes as a surprise because cuttlefish were also a source of ink, called sepia. Ink secreted by live cuttlefish is highly effective even at low concentrations, turning up to a thousand gallons of water dark and opaque within seconds of release.⁶ The pigment is extracted by drying, pulverizing, and boiling the cuttlefish’s ink sac in lye, then the pigment is precipitated out with hydrochloric acid, washed and dried, ground with gum arabic, and mixed with water to write or paint. It is a warm black hue that becomes a reddish brown over time. While there is some evidence for its use as an ink in antiquity, sepia was not used for painting or washes until the eighteenth century.⁷ While perhaps not in as high demand as other inks like carbon black (charcoal and soot) or iron gall, sepia was still an important artistic and practical medium. In fact, iron gall inks (made from plant tannins and iron salts), carbon blacks (especially bistre, a combination of tarry soot and water), and sepia were the three predominant inks used between the fifteenth and nineteenth centuries, although over time sepia replaced bistre.⁸ It is surprising to find little record of the animal from which it is sourced in written records.

Sepia has fallen out of use today as an ink, the modern term referring instead to a color more than a material. But there is still a thriving market for cuttlebone as a dietary supplement for avian and reptilian pets. PetSmart sells a two-pack of cuttlebone for $4.99, and mango/banana flavored cuttlebone at $3.94 for two at the time of writing. If you’re interested in buying in bulk, that’s also an option: a seller on Ebay offered a 70-pack for the low, low price of $10.25. As in the case of cuttlebone in early modern Europe, there are not many details about its sourcing. Most are caught by commercial fisheries, using a method called trawling that involves dragging a large net through the water. Most cuttlefish are caught for their ink and meat, both of which are used in many Mediterranean culinary dishes; cuttlebone is sold secondarily. Furthermore, cuttlefish seem to be at risk of overfishing largely due to trawling, which is poorly regulated and disrupts the ecosystem.⁹

Cuttlebone remains an elusive material to track and study, but one that raises many questions about artistic economies, the historical relationship between the crafts and natural materials, as well as sustainability practices today.¹⁰ That cuttlebone and sepia are so commonly referenced in craft handbooks and are still used today for craft practices, but have clearly not formed a focus of study suggest that its very abundance and its wide utility in a variety of practices made it an overlooked and neglected material. This has important implications for its continued existence and availability into the future.

Works Cited

AquaMaps (2019, October). Computer generated distribution maps for Sepia officinalis (common cuttlefish), with modelled year 2050 native range map based on IPCC RCP8.5 emissions scenario. Retrieved from https://www.aquamaps.org.

British Sea Fishing. “Commercial Fishing for Squid and Cuttlefish,” July 14, 2014. https://britishseafishing.co.uk/commercial-fishing-for-squid-and-cuttlefish/.

Boyd, Emily, Jef Palframan, and Pamela H. Smith. “Molding with Cuttlefish Bone.” In Secrets of Craft and Nature in Renaissance France. A Digital Critical Edition and English Translation of BnF Ms. Fr. 640. Edited by Making and Knowing Project, Pamela H. Smith, Naomi Rosenkranz, Tianna Helena Uchacz, Tillmann Taape, Clément Godbarge, Sophie Pitman, Jenny Boulboullé, Joel Klein, Donna Bilak, Marc Smith, and Terry Catapan. New York: Making and Knowing Project, 2020. https://edition640.makingandknowing.org/#/essays/ann_506_ad_20.

Cornwall Good Seafood Guide. “Cuttlefish.” Accessed May 13, 2022. https://www.cornwallgoodseafoodguide.org.uk/fish-guide/cuttlefish.php.

BBC News. “Cuttlefish Bones Wash up on Cornwall Beaches,” May 19, 2011, sec. Cornwall. https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-cornwall-13451208.

Gerhardt, Mia I. “Knowledge in Decline: Ancient and Medieval Information on ‘Ink-Fishes’ and Their Habits.” Vivarium 4 (1966): 144-175. http://www.jstor.org/stable/41963484.

Gettens, Rutherford John and George Leslie Stout, Painting Materials: A Short Encyclopaedia. New York: Dover Publications, 1942; reis. 1966.

Michell, A. R. “The European Fisheries in Early Modern History.” In The Cambridge Economic History of Europe, edited by E. E. Rich, C. H. Wilson, D. C. Coleman, P. Mathias, and M. M. Postan, 1st ed., 133–84. Cambridge University Press, 1977. https://doi.org/10.1017/CHOL9780521087100.004.

Reháková, Milena, Michal Čeppan, Katarína Vizárová, András Peller, Danica Stojkovičová, and Monika Hricková. “Study of Stability of Brown-Gray Inks on Paper Support.” Heritage Science 3, no. 1 (December 2015): 8. https://doi.org/10.1186/s40494-015-0039-0.