Pigments in a Paint Box Belonging to Whistler in the Library of Congress

Abstract

A paint box and palette that belonged to the American painter James McNeill Whistler(1834-1903) are in the Library of Congress, Washington, DC. There are 37 tubes of paint in the box, including 6 in a separate cardboard box labeled Spectrum Colors. There are also painting and etching tools. The tubes were supplied by five British colormen except for the Spectrum Colors, which came from the American firm of Devoe & Raynolds Inc. Some of the tube labels are missing or illegible. The pigments were identified using polarized light microscopy, X-ray powder diffraction, high performance liquid chromatography, and Raman spectroscopy. Information from Devoe & Raynold's catalogs suggests that the Spectrum Colors were not available before 1909; toluidine red, found in one Spectrum Color, was first synthesized in1904. Thus, the Spectrum Colors must have been put in the paint box after Whistler's death. Of the other pigments in the box, three – graphite, emerald green and synthetic malachite – are not known to have been used by him, but it may be that they are yet to be identified. The paint box was given to the Library of Congress by Joseph and Elizabeth Pennell in 1917, 14 years after the artist's death, and it is not known whether the paint box was used during that time.