Plaster Pigments in Traditional Folk Architecture - A Case Study from Moravia (Czech Republic)

Abstract

The results of analyses of coloured plasters are given in the paper. The samples come from traditional folk earth houses from SE and Central Moravia and were chosen so as all of the most common colours of the Central European folk architecture are present among them: red, yellow, blue, green, and black. The analyses were conducted by the means of light microscopy, which is also a powerful tool for stratigraphical analyses, X-ray diffractometry, Raman spectrometry, end electron microanalysis. Hematite of industrial origin was identified as the red pigment, the yellow one was formed by yellow earth, which also may be a precursor for traditional production of red dye. The widest used blue pigment was ultramarine in the 19th and the first half of 20th century in Moravia. The analysed green pigments were formed by an organic dye of green earth and the black one consisted of soot. Based on the sort and composition of pigment and plaster, the age of the material is also discussed.