The rarer color library in the world is located in Harvard and holds a surprising heritage: beyond 2500 pigmentscollected from all over the planet, with fascinating stories that weave Art, science and mystery.
To cure this extraordinary collection is the Forbes Pigment Collectionan archive born thanks to Edward Forbesart historian and pioneer of museum conservation. Forbes, director of the Fogg Art Museum from 1909 to 1944, traveled far and wide to collect pigments with which to compare the colors of the Renaissance works, for the purpose of verify its authenticity.
Today, the collection is a scientific tool managed by Narayan Khandekardirector of the Straus Center for Conservation and Technical Studies. His work is similar to that of a detective: with methods like Raman spectroscopy, electronic microscopy And chromatography, identifies the chemical composition of colorsrevealing its origin and history.
There are also dangerous colors
Some pigments of the past are as fascinating as it is disturbing. This is the case of Mummy Brownobtained from resins obtained from Egyptian mummieswidely used in the XVIII and XIX centuries. Or of the Cochineala bright red obtained from crushed insectsstill present in food and cosmetics today.
There is no shortage of colors dangerouslike the Yellow of cadmium and the Emerald greenboth based on toxic metalsor the Red 254chemical product discovered in 1974, which allowed unmasking a fake Jackson Pollock. Many colors were a more precious time than gold, like the overseas blue of lapislazzuliextracted only in Afghanistan. Today there is also its synthetic variant, born in 1826 thanks to a scientific competition.
The collection also includes natural plants pigments, such as the Quercitron (a yellow derived from the black oak cortex), the Brazil wood (red-brown), or theVintagean orange obtained from a South American shrub known as the “lipstick plant”.
These pigments are not only used to restore masterpieces, but tell about commercial stories, exploration and culture. Each glass jar contains A piece of humanity historya window on the techniques and materials used by the artists of each era. And while the modern world plays with infinite digital shades, the original colors that have painted our past are kept in Harvard.
