Painting materials in sixteenth-century Flemish illumination, with a focus on the use of copper sulphates: Simon Bening as a case study

Abstract

The identification of copper sulphates, used as green pigments in easel paintings and illuminated manuscripts, is often described in the literature as ‘tentative’, or an ‘unusual’ finding. Many authors remark on the lack of specific recipes in historic treatises and others hypothesise that copper sulphates may be a degradation product of synthetic malachite, often identified in the same areas. Such cautious approaches belie the fact that green copper sulphates have been securely identified in an increasing number of artworks in recent years, the majority of which were created in Flanders during the fifteenth and sixteenth century.