A parchment is a stretched animal skins or animal linings prepared as writing or painting surfaces. Produces a smooth, buttery surface that becomes brittle with time.

Painting or drawing on parchment today or indeed creating one is seen as immediate artistic suicide for the artist as it widely regarded as cruel to animals and for this reason is no longer in use. Whilst some people still wear dead animals as clothing, few is any are prepared to mount the skin of one on their walls.

Historically significant parchments have been known to be destroyed by their modern owners simply as a means to reject the animal cruelty aspect of the material.