Caput mortuum (pigment)

Caput mortuum (Latin, meaning "dead head", and variously spelled caput mortum or caput mortem), also known as cardinal purple, is the name given to a purple variety of haematite iron oxide pigment, used in oil paints and paper dyes. It was a very popular colour for painting the robes of religious figures and important personages (e.g. art patrons).

Caput mortuum
 
    Color coordinates
Hex triplet#592720
sRGBB  (r, g, b)(35, 15, 13)
CMYKH   (c, m, y, k)(70, 75, 70, 0)
HSV       (h, s, v)(7°, 64%, 35%)
Source[Unsourced]
ISCC–NBS descriptorDark reddish brown
B: Normalized to [0–255] (byte)
H: Normalized to [0–100] (hundred)

The name for this pigment may have come from the alchemical usage, since iron oxide (rust) is the useless residue (caput mortuum) of oxidization. It was originally a byproduct of sulfuric acid manufacture during the 17th and 18th centuries, and was possibly an early form of the copperas process used for the manufacture of Venetian red and copperas red.[1]

Caput mortuum is also sometimes used as an alternative name for mummy brown (alternatively Egyptian brown), a pigment that was originally made in the 16th and 17th centuries from ground-up mummies, and whose use was discontinued in the 19th century when artists became aware of its ingredients.[2]

References
  1. Harley, R.D. (2001). Artists' Pigments: c. 1600-1836. JG Publishing : Archetype Publications. ISBN 1-873132-91-3.
  2. Church, A. H. (1901). The Chemistry of Paints and Painting. London: Seeley and Co.
This article is issued from Wikipedia. The text is licensed under Creative Commons - Attribution - Sharealike. Additional terms may apply for the media files.