History of watercolor

[ffaf1]

watercolor originates from africa / the middle east
where gum arabic comes from traditionally
it was used to produce ancient artworks / maybe prehistoric
it reached europe in the middle ages

I believe the first mention of a natural sap as water soluble binder is by Pliny.

Pliny talks about A. Sarcocolla in his Naturalis Historia: «Also a gum exudes from the sarcocolla that is the name of the tree and also of the gum which is extremely useful both to painters and to medical men; it resembles incense dust, and for the purposes mentioned the white kind is better than the red; its price is the one mentioned above.» NH was published 77/79AD

So — if there aren’t earlier sources:

• watercolour originates from Ancient Egypt;
• it reached europe during the Roman Empire.

[globalcitizen]

That's interesting but painting is not the same as watercolor.

Maybe Chinese ink wash painting is the first well evidenced, on-paper watercolor, though traditionally often monotone: Ink wash painting appeared during the Tang dynasty (618–907). However the Chinese painting article history section suggest the Jin dynasty (266–420) and appears to include images of examples featuring both colours and ink gradients.

Interesting later source: 17th Century Watercolors