Page 2 - lead white

Lead white is the most important white pigment used in painting throughout history. It was known to the ancient Egyptians, Greeks, and Romans and commonly used in the preparation of ointments and plasters, as well as cosmetics. It was first identified in literature as a pigment by Pliny, who mentions it, among other colors, as used by the ancients to paint ships...

Black oil is the classic drying oil made with lead. It improves the handling and drying of oils and can be used in recipes to make megilp, Maroger, and Roberson's mediums and traditional oil varnishes, such as copal. This is the classic drying oil made with litharge (lead oxide). Since the earliest times, litharge was cooked with vegetable oil, such as linseed or walnut oil, to clarify it while removing impurities and imparting faster drying characteristics. Cooking the oil for long periods and at high temperatures allows more significant amounts of litharge to be dissolved in the oil while at the same time darkening the oil. ...

The term ‘flake white’ originated from the fact that when basic lead carbonate is made according to the old Dutch method or ‘stack process,’ it falls off the metallic pieces of lead as ‘flakes.’ This is not the case when lead white is made according to modern processes, which is the pigment type used by all artists’ paint manufacturers today...

The lead white pigment used in lead white artists' oil paint (often called flake white) is a modern process of lead white with fine particle size. What is the difference between modern lead white in today's artist colors and flake white used by the old masters and artists before the 20th century...