Lead-tin yellow is a yellow pigment, of historical importance in oil painting, [1] sometimes called the "Yellow of the Old Masters" because of the frequency with which it was used by those famous painters. [2] [3]
Lead-tin yellow is a yellow pigment, of historical importance in oil painting, [1] sometimes called the "Yellow of the Old Masters" because of the frequency with which it was used by those famous painters. [2] [3]
The name lead-tin yellow is a modern label. During the thirteenth to eighteenth centuries when it was in widest use, it was known by a variety of names. In Italy, it was giallorino or giallolino. In other countries of Europe, it was massicot, genuli (Spanish), Plygal (German), general (English) or mechim (Portuguese). All of these names were often applied to other yellow pigments as well as lead-tin yellow. [3]
Lead-tin yellow historically occurred in two varieties. The first and more common one, today known as "Type I", was a lead stannate, an oxide of lead and tin with the chemical formula Pb2SnO4. The second, "Type II", was a silicate with the formula Pb(Sn,Si)O3. [4] [5] Lead-tin yellow was produced by heating a powder mixture of lead oxide and tin oxide to about 900 °C. In "Type II" the mixture also contained quartz. Its hue is a rather saturated yellow. The pigment is opaque and lightfast. As a type of lead paint, it presents the hazard of lead poisoning if ingested, inhaled, or contacted. [5]
The origin of lead-tin yellow can be dated back to at least the thirteenth century when Type II was applied in frescos, perhaps having been discovered as a by-product of crystal glass production. Until the eighteenth century, Type I was the standard yellow used in oil painting. [3]
Lead-tin yellow was widely employed in the Renaissance [6] by painters such as Titian ( Bacchus and Ariadne ), [7] Bellini ( The Feast of the Gods ) and Raphael ( Sistine Madonna ), and during the Baroque period by Rembrandt ( Belshazzar's Feast ), [8] Vermeer ( The Milkmaid ), [9] and Velázquez ( Apollo in the Forge of Vulcan ).
In the early eighteenth century, lead-tin yellow was almost completely replaced in use by Naples yellow. After 1750, no paintings seem to have been made containing the pigment, and its existence was eventually forgotten for reasons that are not entirely clear. [5] [3] Lead-tin yellow was rediscovered in 1941 by the German scientist Richard Jakobi, then-director of the Doerner Institute. [10] [3] Jakobi called it Blei-Zinn-Gelb; the English "lead-tin yellow" is a literal translation of the German term.
After 1967, Hermann Kühn in a series of studies proved its general use in the traditional oil technique of earlier centuries, coining the distinction between the Type I and Type II varieties. [4] [11]
One prominent hypothesis for its disappearance from collective memory is confusion with other yellow pigments like massicot. Lead-tin yellow was sometimes called massicot, although it is a different substance. [3] Prior to the development of modern analytical tools allowing for microscopic testing of paint, it was not always possible for art historians to distinguish between similar pigments, meaning that most yellow pigment containing lead was generally labeled Naples yellow. [3]
Increased use of other pigments such as the less-opaque Naples yellow may also have displaced lead-tin yellow in common use. During the nineteenth century, after lead-tin yellow had vanished from common use, newer inorganic yellow pigments came into use, such as chrome yellow (lead chromate), cadmium sulfide, and cobalt yellow. [5]
Ultramarine is a deep blue color pigment which was originally made by grinding lapis lazuli into a powder. Its lengthy grinding and washing process makes the natural pigment quite valuable—roughly ten times more expensive than the stone it comes from and as expensive as gold.
A pigment is a powder used to add color or change visual appearance. Pigments are completely or nearly insoluble and chemically unreactive in water or another medium; in contrast, dyes are colored substances which are soluble or go into solution at some stage in their use. Dyes are often organic compounds whereas pigments are often inorganic. Pigments of prehistoric and historic value include ochre, charcoal, and lapis lazuli.
Ochre, iron ochre, or ocher in American English, is a natural clay earth pigment, a mixture of ferric oxide and varying amounts of clay and sand. It ranges in colour from yellow to deep orange or brown. It is also the name of the colours produced by this pigment, especially a light brownish-yellow. A variant of ochre containing a large amount of hematite, or dehydrated iron oxide, has a reddish tint known as red ochre.
Umber is a natural earth pigment consisting of iron oxide and manganese oxide; it has a brownish color that can vary among shades of yellow, red, and green. Umber is considered one of the oldest pigments known to humans, first seen in Ajanta Caves in 200 BC – 600 AD. Umber's advantages are its highly versatile color, warm tone, and quick drying abilities. While some sources indicate that umber's name comes from its geographic origin in Umbria, other scholars suggest that it derives from the Latin word umbra, which means "shadow". The belief that its name derives from the word for shadow is fitting, as the color helps create shadows. The color is primarily produced in Cyprus. Umber is typically mined from open pits or underground mines and ground into a fine powder that is washed to remove impurities. In the 20th century, the rise of synthetic dyes decreased the demand for natural pigments such as umber.
Oil paint is a type of slow-drying paint that consists of particles of pigment suspended in a drying oil, commonly linseed oil. For several centuries the oil painting has been perhaps the most prestigious form in Western art, but oil paint has many practical uses, mainly because it is waterproof.
Verdigris is a common name for any of a variety of somewhat poisonous copper salts of acetic acid, which range in colour from green to a bluish-green depending on their chemical composition. Once used as a medicine and pharmaceutical preparation, verdigris occurs naturally, creating a patina on copper, bronze, and brass, and is the main component of a historic green pigment used for artistic purposes from antiquity until the late 20th century, including in easel painting, polychromatic sculptures, and illumination of maps. However, due to its instability, its popularity declined as other green pigments became readily available. The instability of its appearance stems from its hydration level and basicity, which change as the pigment interacts with other materials over time.
Naples yellow, also called antimony yellow or lead antimonate yellow, is an inorganic pigment that largely replaced lead-tin-yellow and has been used in European paintings since the seventeenth century. While the mineral orpiment is considered to be the oldest yellow pigment, Naples yellow, like Egyptian blue, is one of the oldest known synthetic pigments. Naples yellow was used in ancient Egypt and Mesopotamia, finding widespread application during the Hellenistic and Roman periods. Prior to its earliest occurrences in European paintings, the pigment was commonly employed in pottery, glazes, enamels, and glass. The pigment ranged in hue from a muted, earthy, reddish yellow to a bright light yellow.
Tin(IV) oxide, also known as stannic oxide, is the inorganic compound with the formula SnO2. The mineral form of SnO2 is called cassiterite, and this is the main ore of tin. With many other names, this oxide of tin is an important material in tin chemistry. It is a colourless, diamagnetic, amphoteric solid.
Zinc white is an inorganic pigment composed of zinc oxide that has been used by painters since the late eighteenth century. Alongside lead and titanium white, it is among the three most prominent white pigments that are commercially available today. Its primary advantages are its low toxicity and the cool clarity of its color. It was initially developed in the 1780s by the French chemist and magistrate Louis-Bernard Guyton de Morveau, who struggled to popularize its use. The French Academy of Sciences approved of the invention in 1782, but artists from the French Royal Academy of Painting and Sculpture expressed skepticism. Initially, zinc white pigment was more costly to produce than lead white, but its price diminished as production methods improved over the course of the nineteenth century. While the superior safety of zinc white had been established by the end of the eighteenth century, manufacturers of lead white downplayed these differences, and lead continued to dominate the market for white paint until the early twentieth century.
The Little Street is a painting by the Dutch painter Johannes Vermeer, executed c. 1657–1658. It is exhibited at the Rijksmuseum of Amsterdam, and signed, below the window in the lower left-hand corner, "I V MEER".
Bacchus and Ariadne (1522–1523) is an oil painting by Titian. It is one of a cycle of paintings on mythological subjects produced for Alfonso I d'Este, Duke of Ferrara, for the Camerino d'Alabastro – a private room in his palazzo in Ferrara decorated with paintings based on classical texts. An advance payment was given to Raphael, who originally held the commission for the subject of a Triumph of Bacchus.
The Prodigal Son in the Brothel or The Prodigal Son in the Tavern or Rembrandt and Saskia in the parable of the prodigal son is a painting by the Dutch master Rembrandt. It is now in the Gemäldegalerie Alte Meister of Dresden, Germany. It is signed "REMBRANDT F.".
The Feast of the Gods is an oil painting by the Italian Renaissance master Giovanni Bellini, with substantial additions in stages to the left and center landscape by Dosso Dossi and Titian. It is one of the few mythological pictures by the Venetian artist. Completed in 1514, it was his last major work. It is now in the National Gallery of Art in Washington D.C., which calls it "one of the greatest Renaissance paintings in the United States".
Officer and Laughing Girl, also known as Officer and a Laughing Girl, Officer With a Laughing Girl or, in Dutch, De Soldaat en het Lachende Meisje, is an oil painting on canvas executed ca. 1657 by the Dutch artist Johannes Vermeer. Its dimensions are 50.5 by 46 cm. It is now one of three pictures by Vermeer in The Frick Collection in New York.
Woman Holding a Balance, also called Woman Testing a Balance, is an oil painting by Dutch Golden Age painter Johannes Vermeer, now in the National Gallery of Art in Washington, DC.
The Procuress is a 1656 oil-on-canvas painting by the then 24-year-old Johannes Vermeer. It can be seen in the Gemäldegalerie Alte Meister in Dresden. It is his first genre painting and shows a scene of contemporary life, an image of mercenary love perhaps in a brothel. It differs from his earlier biblical and mythological scenes. It is one of only three paintings Vermeer signed and dated. In 1696 the painting, being sold on an auction in Amsterdam, was named "A merry company in a room".
The Girl with the Wine Glass is an oil on canvas painting by Johannes Vermeer, created c. 1659–1660, now in the Herzog Anton Ulrich Museum, in Braunschweig.
Red pigments are materials, usually made from minerals, used to create the red colors in painting and other arts. The color of red and other pigments is determined by the way it absorbs certain parts of the spectrum of visible light and reflects the others. The brilliant opaque red of vermillion, for example, results because vermillion reflects the major part of red light, but absorbs the blue, green and yellow parts of white light.