ultramarine blue

Ingredients

lapis lazuli, linseed oil, wax, rosin, resin, flax oil, turpentine, mastic

Preparation Steps

Original Recipe Text

Felix Palacios, Palestra Pharmaceutica (1706): Take a very fine simple [muy escogido] of lapis Lazuli, that which is very cerulean blue [ceruleo] and grind it into a find powder and prepare it on a porphyry stone, wetting it with linseed oil; and once the particles are very find, mix them with four times their weight with a paste (the paste is made of wax, rosin, resin, flax oil, turpentine, then is softened and strained, and then mixed with finely ground mastic) over a low heat. Then leave it in a warm place for two weeks. Then put it into a tub filled with hot water and shake it with your hand, and if no stone particles precipitate, then add boiling water and shake the paste with a spatula. Once the liquid becomes cerulean-colored, take the mass out and put it into another tub of hot water and shake it again until the water is cerulean-colored; then take the paste out and put it in another tub of hot water and keep doing this until the paste has no more blue particles. Leave the first liquid for 10 to 12 hours or until the particles have settled at the bottom, then pour off the water and leave them to dry (p. 17).

Evidence

"A comparison between different recipes for ultramarine blue, white lead, and vermillion in painting texts and pharmaceutical treatises shows shared methods for shared outcomes (p. 316)"

Remarks

The overlap between pharmaceutical materials and those of other artisanal professions is especially evident with regard to inorganic pigments common to metallurgy, pharmacy, architecture, bookmaking (illuminations and ink writing), and painting (p. 316). The pharmacy inventories confirmed a 75 percent overlap between medical materials and decorative arts (p. 316).