ABSTRACT
THE SHADES of colour of madder lakes vary through scarlet, carmine red, red with a bluish tint and pink (see Glossary). Since classical times painters have used madder lakes as part of their repertoire of reds. This is confirmed by modern analytical methods which have developed greatly in the past 40 years and especially during the last 15. The combination of limited equipment, funds and time available has resulted in the analysis of only a small proportion of the paintings in the great museums and galleries of the world. Madder pigments have however been analysed in over twenty paintings—some famous—from Europe (15th to 19th centuries), Russia (sixth to seventh centuries) and Tibet (15th to 19th centuries). The list in appendix 10.1 (page 325) must be incomplete but it shows how wide a range of artists used the lakes. Winsor & Newton's rose madder pigment, quill sized Persian madder roots and tube of Rose madder water-colour (Author's photo) https://s3-euw1-ap-pe-df-pch-content-public-p.s3.eu-west-1.amazonaws.com/9780203400432/92662973-f6f8-4aa6-b042-fc630ebb4283/content/figu_81_B.jpg" xmlns:xlink="https://www.w3.org/1999/xlink"/> Early painting methods combined pigments with waxes or gum. In Roman Egyptian Mummy portraits the binding medium was replaced with egg tempera, rediscovered by the Early Italian School inters of the 13th century. The artist’s studio where the master had assistants and apprentices came into being about 1290 in Sienna. The introduction of vegetable oils—usually linseed, safflower or sesame—was often credited to the Van Eyck family who used maple oil during the late 14th century. However the use and formulation of oils, which were more convenient than tempera, must have developed over the preceding centuries. 1 The 1950s saw the addition of quick drying, minimal colour-shift acrylics to the continuing use of oil and water colours. In 1994 Winsor & Newton introduced the more light-fast synthetic ‘Permanent Alizarin Crimson’ to supplement ‘Alizarin Crimson’ introduced c. 1860 and ‘Carmine’ from kermes.
