Page 277 - Copper and Bronze in Art: Corrosion, Colorants, Getty Museum Conservation, By David Scott

F I G U R E 8 . 2 Ovoid Lekythos,
Canosa vase, South Italian,
fourth to third century B . C . E .
Terra-cotta and polychromy.
1
H : 9 cm. These types of
funerary vessels were painted
and not fired. Burial in a tomb
accounts for the survival of
the Egyptian blue pigment.
Malibu, J. Paul Getty Museum
( 7 6 . A E . 9 5 ) .

fracture, and clear blue transmission of the pigment, which did not suffer any apparent degra­
dation as a result of tomb burial.
The discovery of some pyrite particles in Egyptian blue pigment samples from the tomb of
Akhet-hotep (Fifth Dynasty, 2465-2323 B.C.E.) and others suggest that the temperature of man­
ufacture never exceeded 743 °C, at which point iron pyrites begin to decompose. This tempera­
ture maximum, however, does not accord with the research carried out by Tite (i984).
When scrap metal was the source of the copper used to make the pigment, small amounts
(0.01-0.3%) of tin, arsenic, and lead, are usually present as well. Bronze scrap may have been
used for some Egyptian blue manufacturing as suggested by the presence of tin compounds,
such as cassiterite, in pigment samples from the time of Thutmose II (reigned 1479-1426 B.C.E.).
I

C H A P T E R E I G H T
260