A painted swatch of Smalt:
Brief description of Smalt:
It's a ground blue potassium glass containing cobalt used among the 15th and the 17th centuries. Its origin is not clear. Although several writers have suggested that smalt could be a European invention discovered around 1540 by a Bohemian glassmaker, evidence shows that Venetian glassmakers were already familiar with the properties of cobalt, because some fifteenth-century Venetian glasses have been found coloured with cobalt. In Europe the use of smalt as an artist's pigment was widespread certainly as early as the late sixteenth century.
Names for Smalt:
| Pronounciation: | smalt | ||||||
| Alternative names: | starch blue | ||||||
| Word origin: | The name "Smalt" comes from Germanic origin. | ||||||
| Non-English names: |
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| Color Index (C.I.) | PB32 | ||||||
| Chemical name: | potassium glass containing cobalt |
Source of Smalt:
Example of use by artists:
Painting with crashed glass
Hans Holbein the Younger, Sir William Butts, 1540-1543, National Portrait Gallery, London.
Renaissance artists used ground cobalt containing glass, smalt, to add vibrancy to their paintings. A portrait of Sir William Butts by Hans Holbein the Younger (1497-1543), is among the earliest paintings in which smalt has been found as a pigment.
(intro) - Azurite - Cerulean Blue - Cobalt blue - Egyptian blue - Indigo - Prussian blue - Smalt - Ultramarine
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