Lead white

Brief description of Lead white:

This was the native cerusite, a carbonate of lead which was in use as early as 400 B.C. Used since antiquity, was mentioned by Pliny and Vestruvious who describe its preparation from metallic lead and vinegar, lead white was the only white used in European easel paintings until the 19th Century when its poisonous lead content restricted its manufacture and sale as an artist’s pigment. The siccative or drying action of lead white upon oils is another reason for its being so widely used.

Names for Lead white:

Source of Lead white:

Lead white crust formed on strips of lead.

modern mineralogical name: hydrocerussite (at Mineralogy Database)

Example of use by artists:

Black angels in a XIV Century English manuscript?

Byzantine illuminated manuscript, series of readings based on the gospel, 1220, British Library.

Viictorian gas lamps blackened the pale faces of angels on an 800-year-old illuminated manuscript. The British Library, which has owned the book since the early 19th century, found out that large areas of the 60 richly coloured illustrations had turned black. The lead white pigment mixed with red pigment for the flesh tone has turned to a black compound, lead(II) sulfide due to the reaction among lead white and hydrogen sulfide emitted by the gas lamps used in the museum in the Victorian age.