The Technical Examination of Nineteenth-Century Artists' Pigments from John Opie’s Paintbox

Abstract

ABSTRACT St Agnes Museum, Cornwall, currently holds in its collections a paint box with a metal plaque reading ‘John Opie 1806’, containing pigments and other artists’ materials. John Opie produced hundreds of oil paintings until his untimely death in 1807 and was a well-known and successful painter of portraits and historical scenes. However, his work has been little studied, in comparison to his contemporaries such as Joshua Reynolds. This paper discusses the identification of the pigments in the paint box using infrared spectroscopy (FTIR-ATR), optical microscopy, scanning electron microscopy with energy dispersive spectroscopy (SEM-EDX), Raman spectroscopy (SERS) and X-ray fluorescence (XRF). Seven pigments have been identified as ultramarine, lead white, fustic and carmine lakes, carbon black (likely ivory), hematite, and burnt sienna, consistent with the bottle labels where present. The identification has been further confirmed using historical literature, which has shown that the pigments are likely to be contemporary with the stated date of 1806. This information adds to the body of knowledge about the artist specifically, and the artists pigments generally available at the time.