The Harvard Library That Protects The World's Rarest Colors | Co.

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10/4/16 23:52

5 MINUTE READ MAKING IT

The Harvard Library

That Protects The
World's Rarest Colors
The most unusual colors from Harvard's storied
pigment library include beetle extracts, poisonous
metals, and human mummies.

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01 /08 The materials collection, including the Forbes collection of pigments and the Gettens collection of media a
varnishes, at the Straus Center for Conservation and Technical Studies, Harvard Art Museums

D I A N A B U D D S 0 3. 2 1 .1 6 7: 0 0 A M

Today, every color imaginable is at your

fingertips. You can peruse paint swatches at
hardware stores, flip through Pantone
Pantone
Pantone
Pantone books, and
fuss with the color finder that comes with most
Pantone
computer programs, until achieving
the hue of
your heart's desire. But rewind to a few centuries
ago and finding that one specific color might
have meant trekking to a single mineral deposit
in remote Afghanistanas was the case with
lapis lazuli, a rock prized for its brilliant blue hue,
which made it more valuable than gold in
medieval times.
The history of pigments goes
back to prehistoric times, but
much of what we know about
how they relate to the art
world comes from Edward
Edward
Edward
Edward
Forbes
Forbes
Forbes
Forbes, a historian and
director of the FoggEdward
Art
Forbes
Museum at Harvard

University from 1909 to 1944.

Considered the father of art
conservation in the United
States, Forbes traveled around
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Portrait of Edward
Waldo Forbes, undated.
Photograph by
Bachrach. Fogg History
Photographs, Fogg
Benefactors, file 1.
Harvard Art Museums
Archives

10/4/16 23:52

the world amassing pigments

in order to authenticate
classical Italian paintings.
Over the years, the Forbes
Forbes
Forbes
Forbes
Pigment
Pigment
Pigment
PigmentCollection
Collection
Collection
Collectionas his
Forbes
collection came to be
known

Pigment
Collection
grew to more than 2,500
dierent
specimens,

each with its own layered backstory on its origin,

production, and use.
Today, the collection is used mostly for scientific
analysis, providing standard pigments to
compare to unknowns. Narayan Khandekar is the
director of the Straus Center for Conservation
and Technical Studies at the Harvard Art
Museums and the collection's custodian. For the
last 10 years, Khandekar has rebuilt the
collection to include modern pigments to better
analyze 20th century and contemporary art.

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A lot has changed in the

art world since painters
worked with "colormen"
as tradesmen in dyes and
pigments were knownto
obtain their medium. The
commercialization of
paints has transformed
that process. "Artists today
will use anything to get
the idea that's in their
head into a physical form,"
Khandekar says. "It could

"People
would
harvest
mummies
from Egypt
and then
extract the
brown resin
material
that was on
the
wrappings .
. . and turn

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be pieces of plastic. It
could be cans of food. It

10/4/16 23:52

that into a
pigment."

could be anything. We
need to be able to identify
lots of dierent materials that are industrially
produced as well as things that are produced
specifically for artists' use."

The pigments in the Forbes collection come from all over the world, and
some are stored in their original delicate glass containers. Jenny
Stenger, President and Fellows of Harvard College

The way he describes his work researching and

cataloging pigments is akin to detective work.
"We use our instruments in the same way that
forensic scientists do," Khandekar says. "We
examine and find out what we can about the key
compounds that will tell us the material's origin."
But instead of tools such as DNA analysis, he and
his team of conservation scientists use
techniques such as Raman
Raman
Raman
Ramanspectroscopy
spectroscopy
spectroscopy
spectroscopy, mass
mass
mass
mass
spectrometry
spectrometry
spectrometry
spectrometry, gas
gas
gas
gaschromatography
chromatography
chromatography
chromatography, and electron
electron
electron
electron
Raman spectroscopy mass

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spectrometry gas chromatography

electron

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microscopy
microscopy
microscopy
microscopy to map out the precise chemical
composition of a pigment.
microscopy

Y O U ' R E R E A D I N G : FA STC O D E S I G N / T H E H A RVA R D L I B R A RY T H AT P R OT E CT S T H E W O R L D ' S SUBSCRIBE

R A R E S T C O LO R S

The Straus Centers materials collection includes an impressive array of

pigments to aid research and conservation work. Peter Vanderwarker

For example, their work was instrumental in

proving that a Jackson Pollock painting

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"rediscovered" in 2007 was actually a fake, a"er

pigment analysis revealed that a specific red
color was manufactured 20 years a"er the artist's
death. The color, Red 254, was a by-product of a
chemical reaction first documented in 1974; it's

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also nicknamed
"Ferrari red."
"Every pigment has its own story," Khandekar
says. With that in mind, we asked him to share
the stories of 10 of the rarest and most
interesting pigments in the Forbes collection.
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Synthetic Ultramarine
"This was discovered in
1826 as the result of a
contest. In a way it is like
discovering how to make
gold as artists no longer
had to buy natural
ultramarine at great cost."
Mummy Brown
"People would harvest

Harvard Art Museums,

President and
Fellows of Harvard
College

mummies from Egypt and

then extract the brown resin material that was on
the wrappings around the bodies and turn that
into a pigment. It's a very bizarre kind of
pigment, I've got to say, but it was very popular in
the 18th and 19th centuries."
Brazilwood
"Brazilwood is any of several tropical trees of the
senna genus. Its hard, red-color wood has had
limited use for violins, bows, veneer, and highquality furniture. The wood contains the colorant
brasilin, which gives a deep-red to brownish
color. Brazilwood dye has been used for textile
and leather dyes, inks, paints, varnish tints, and
wood stains."
Quercitron
"A yellow vegetable dye, quercitron is extracted
from the black or dark brown bark of the black
oak, Quercus velutina, that is native to the Eastern

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and Midwestern parts of the United States."

Annatto
"The lipstick planta small tree, Bixa orellana,
native to Central and South Americaproduces
annatto, a natural orange dye. Seeds from the
plant are contained in a pod surrounded with a
bright red pulp. Currently, annatto is used to color
butter, cheese, and cosmetics."
Lapis Lazuli
"People would mine it in Afghanistan, ship it
across Europe, and it was more expensive that
gold so it would have its own budget line on a
commission."
Dragon's Blood
"It has a great name, but it's not from dragons.
[The bright red pigment] is from the rattan
palm."
Cochineal
"This red dye comes from squashed beetles, and
it's used in cosmetics and food."
Cadmium Yellow
"Cadmium yellow was introduced in the mid
19th century. It's a bright yellow that many
impressionists used. Cadmium is a heavy metal,
very toxic. In the early 20th century, cadmium
red was introduced. You find these pigments
used in industrial processes. Up until the 1970s,
Lego bricks had cadmium pigment in them."
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Emerald Green
"This is made from copper
acetoarsenite. We had a Van
Gogh with a bright green
background that was
identified as emerald green.
Pigments used for artists'
purposes can find their way
into use in other areas as well.
Emerald green was used as an
insecticide, and you o"en see
Harvard Art Museums,
President and
Fellows of Harvard
College

it on older wood that would be

put into the ground, like
railroad ties."

Slideshow Credits: 01 / Zak Jensen, President and Fellows of

Harvard College; 02 / Antoinette Hocbo, President and
Fellows of Harvard College; 03 / Antoinette Hocbo,
President and Fellows of Harvard College; 04 / Jenny Stenger,
President and Fellows of Harvard College; 05 / Jenny
Stenger, President and Fellows of Harvard College; 06 /
Jenny Stenger, President and Fellows of Harvard College; 07
/ Peter Vanderwarker; 08 / Peter Vanderwarker;

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The
TheHarvard
Harvard
HarvardLibrary
Library
LibraryThat
That
ThatProtects
Protects
Protects
The
The
The
TheWorld's
World's
World'sRarest
Rarest
RarestColors
Colors
Colors
The Harvard Library That Protects
The World's Rarest Colors

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