ESHS/HSS Annual Meeting

Mining and Painting: Re-evaluating the Presence of Azurite in Early Painted Works

• In Event: Minescapes 2: Mining for Blue

English Abstract

Discovery of azurite veins in Portugal and Spain centuries before the exploitation of important sources in twelfth-century Germany may be the pigment source before 1200 CE. This paper will look at the limited information on azurite mining, that is, where it occurs and who mined the mineral, and aims to link this to the occurrences of azurite in miniatures and easel paintings. The mineral azurite is readily worked up using grinding and levigation to make pigment. This blue appears to be ubiquitous in paintings however this may not be true. Medieval sources for the pigment have been overlooked. Associated with both copper and silver mining, there is evidence that azurite was sometimes mined separately from those metal ores since it was found in shallow seams that were perhaps exploited by a different group of miners.

Author

• Barbara Hepburn Berrie, Emerita, Head of Scientific Research, Conservation Department, National Gallery of Art