2021. Color Technology and Trade

Hilary Becker

2021. Color Technology and Trade

2021, Cultural History of Color. Carole Biggam and Kirsten Wolf, general editors; David Wharton, editor of the antiquity volume. Bloomsbury Publishing

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A certain Apollonios wanted a garment of a particular color in Roman Egypt in the second century CE. His sister, Aline, a dyer, encouraged him to send a sample of that color to her so that she could match it. Similarly, a painter in Roman Egypt had started to paint a portrait on a wooden panel. 1 The preliminary draft of this painting survives, where an outline of the portrait of a woman had been sketched. Written instructions specified what colors (for example, "purple" and "green necklace") should be painted in which areas on the panel. In both cases, before the textile or painting had been created, an artist was thinking about what color might be appropriate. Just what colors did Aline and the panel artist have to choose from in antiquity? And how were these colors (whether pigments or dyes) gathered or produced? What choices did artists, patrons, and everyday buyers have in terms of color and price? The Greeks and Romans used a great number of pigments and dyes that gave color to textiles, faces (cosmetics), statues, walls, and the like. This chapter surveys the trade in ancient pigments and dyes, first looking at how they were produced (or mined) and then examining the evidence for how these colors were sold and priced. It will set dyes and pigments in parallel, moving from manufacture to product specialization and then to the market, where prices and color choices will be explored. MATERIALS: DYES It is first useful to define dyes in relation to pigments. Most pigments were naturally occurring minerals; however, a few, such as white lead and Egyptian

PL C H IN Technology and Trade G CHAPTER TWO BL IS HILARY BECKER © BL O O M SB U R Y PU A certain Apollonios wanted a garment of a particular color in Roman Egypt in the second century CE. His sister, Aline, a dyer, encouraged him to send a sample of that color to her so that she could match it. Similarly, a painter in Roman Egypt had started to paint a portrait on a wooden panel.1 The preliminary draft of this painting survives, where an outline of the portrait of a woman had been sketched. Written instructions specified what colors (for example, “purple” and “green necklace”) should be painted in which areas on the panel. In both cases, before the textile or painting had been created, an artist was thinking about what color might be appropriate. Just what colors did Aline and the panel artist have to choose from in antiquity? And how were these colors (whether pigments or dyes) gathered or produced? What choices did artists, patrons, and everyday buyers have in terms of color and price? The Greeks and Romans used a great number of pigments and dyes that gave color to textiles, faces (cosmetics), statues, walls, and the like. This chapter surveys the trade in ancient pigments and dyes, first looking at how they were produced (or mined) and then examining the evidence for how these colors were sold and priced. It will set dyes and pigments in parallel, moving from manufacture to product specialization and then to the market, where prices and color choices will be explored. MATERIALS: DYES It is first useful to define dyes in relation to pigments. Most pigments were naturally occurring minerals; however, a few, such as white lead and Egyptian 9781474273275_txt_print.indd 35 2/9/2021 8:19:10 AM 36 A CULTURAL HISTORY OF COLOR IN ANTIQUITY © BL O O M SB U R Y PU BL IS H IN G PL C blue, were manufactured. The materials used as pigments do not overlap much with those used to make ancient dyes because most pigments would not stand up to multiple washings. Dyes are soluble in water and largely drawn from vegetable and mineral sources, and dyes can be made into pigments (known as lakes) if they are dyed onto a substrate such as clay. Archaeological and textual sources show that there was a great variety of dyes produced from vegetable, animal, and mineral sources. A variety of yellow vegetable dyes existed, including weld or dyer’s rocket (Reseda luteola), dyer’s broom (Genista tinctoria), saffron (Crocus sativus), tanner’s sumac (Rhus coriaria), the Mediterranean hackberry (Celtis australis), and the pomegranate (Punica granatum) (Juan-Tresserras 2000: 247; Cardon 2007: 168–77, 179–80, 302–7, 431–3, 481–4; Martelli 2014: 122–4). Blue could be obtained from dyer’s woad (Isatis tinctoria) (Cardon 2007: 367–79). While indigo (Indigofera tinctoria) was rarely used as a pigment, evidence for its use as a dye by the Greeks and Romans has not been found; however, indigo may have been used as a dye by the ancient Egyptians (Pliny the Elder 1952: 35.27; Cardon 2007: 363; Borgard et al. 2014: 200). For vegetable reds and purples, lichen (Roccella tinctoria), madder (Rubia tinctorium or Rubia peregrina), safflower (Carthamus tinctorius), henna (Lawsonia inermis), or whortleberry (Vaccinium myrtillus) could be used (Cardon 2007: 54–9, 83–5, 107–23, 243–5, 495–503). Pliny mentions that the whortleberry was employed as a dye in Gaul to dye the clothes of slaves, while Vitruvius states that this material made an exquisite purple (purpuram elegantem) for painting when mixed with milk (Pliny the Elder 1968: 16.31; Vitruvius 1998: s. 7.14.2). Dark colors could be produced using walnut shells (Pliny the Elder 1968: 15.87 and 16.9; Cardon 2007: 74–9). A scale insect, the kermes vermilio, produced a rich scarlet dye (Cardon 2007: 611–19). Perhaps the best-known ancient dye is the purple derived from various species of murex molluscs. Colors thus produced can range through shades of purple, but also include pink, blue, and reddish brown. Murex purple is attested as early as the late Bronze Age (in a Linear B text, on a fresco, on an amphora fragment, as a raw pigment, and in murex shells at Aegean sites), and it continued to be used as a premium pigment and dye until the fall of Constantinople (Karali and Megaloudi 2008: 183; Koren 2005; Sotiropoulou and Karapanagiotis 2006; Cardon 2007: 553–82). MATERIALS: PIGMENTS The majority of pigments used by the Greeks and Romans are naturally occurring minerals, including red ochre (hematite) and yellow ochre (goethite), green earth (the minerals glauconite or celadonite), cinnabar (minium, mercury sulfide), and different types of white (especially forms of calcium carbonate). Some other pigments, which were processed or manufactured include Egyptian 9781474273275_txt_print.indd 36 2/9/2021 8:19:10 AM

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