The Sorbs are a West Slavic minority in eastern Germany, and their Easter eggs are made by subtraction. Hot beeswax is laid dot by dot with a cut goose quill; the egg then goes down through dye baths, each one darker, until it comes out black. Every dot the wax covered stays the colour it was when the wax touched it.

Before aniline dye the palette was three words — onion skin, alder cone, brazilwood. This system keeps that discipline: a warm vegetal black page, reserved shell as the brightest note, and ornament built only from dots, triangles, wheat ears and sun wheels in strict rotational repeats.