| Abstract: | SUMMARIES. The recent identification of a lead-tin-antimony yellow, very similar to lead-tin yellow type II and lead antimonate yellow, and the coincidence in the use of these artificial pigments in seventeenth-century Italian paintings, has revived interest in the manufacture and historical use of these pigments, the evolution of their chemical composition over time, and their analytical study. This paper presents an account of the historical manufacture of lead-tin-antimony yellow, based on the study of Italian glass-industry manuscripts dating from the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. The use of this pigment in paintings, as reported by other authors, is also described. Finally, the molecular characterization of this ternary oxide of lead-tin-antimony by Raman spectroscopy is presented, through the analysis of reference compounds manufactured according to the theoretical pyrochlore formula and historical recipes. Spectra obtained for the reference compounds are in good agreement with those obtained for yellow pigments in seventeenth-century Italian paintings, in particular in works by Giovanni Battista Langetti and Luca Giordano.
CONCLUSION. The existence of a yellow pigment based on a ternary oxide of lead-tin-antimony has been demonstrated using molecular spectroscopy. These experimental results have been confirmed by elemental analysis (SEM-EDX), in good agreement with the recent atomic identification of this previously unknown pigment by others. Enough historical documentation has been presented to confirm that the lead-tin-antimony yellow pigment was commonly manufactured in Murano from the sixteenth to the nineteenth century. Furthermore, it can be confirmed that this yellow pigment was used in seventeenth-century Italian paintings in connection with the city of Rome, in agreement with previous studies. The reason that this lead-tin-antimony yellow pigment was not discovered in painting until recently lies in the difficulty of its elemental identification and in the lack of related studies on pigments used in both painting and glass manufacture. Future analyses will broaden our knowledge of the historical use of this pigment, which could be catalogued as a standard yellow employed in painting in the seventeenth century in Italy. Based on this study, it can be stated with confidence that Raman spectroscopy is an efficient analytical technique for the identification of the lead-tin-antimony yellow pigment, and can help in the study of this little-known pigment in the future. |
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