Ultramarine

Ultramarine is a deep blue pigment historically made by grinding and purifying lapis lazuli. Its vivid color and costly production made it a prized material in painting.

Lapis lazuli: A blue metamorphic rock containing lazurite, calcite, and other minerals. It is the rock from which historical natural ultramarine was extracted.
Lapis lazuli purification: The historical process of separating blue lazurite-rich material from pale minerals in lapis lazuli. Repeated kneading and washing concentrated the costly blue fraction used as natural pigment.
Badakhshan: A mountainous region in northeastern Afghanistan historically known for deposits of lapis lazuli. Its mines supplied much of the lapis used for natural ultramarine.
Madonna of the Meadow: A painting by Raphael, made around 1505, depicting the Virgin Mary with the Christ Child and John the Baptist. Its blue mantle is a celebrated use of costly ultramarine in Renaissance painting.
Az urite: A copper carbonate mineral used historically as a blue pigment. Azurite offered a less costly mineral blue, though its hue and aging behavior differed.
Lazurite: A sulfur-bearing blue mineral and the principal color-producing component of lapis lazuli. Its crystal structure hosts the sulfur species responsible for ultramarine’s blue.
Synthetic ultramarine: An artificially manufactured blue pigment with a structure and color similar to natural ultramarine. It reproduces the blue without requiring lapis lazuli.
Lapis lazuli trade: The long-distance exchange of lapis lazuli from Central Asian sources to consumers across Eurasia. Transport from distant mines helped make the pigment unusually expensive in Europe.
The Annunciation: A Christian subject depicting the angel Gabriel announcing to Mary that she will bear Jesus. Artists often used ultramarine for Mary’s mantle in depictions of this subject.
Prussian blue: A synthetic iron-based blue pigment first produced in early eighteenth-century Europe. Its lower cost and strong tinting power challenged ultramarine’s dominance.

Linked from 11 pages