More on Works in the National Gallery

In the National Gallery there are ten portraits in wax-pigments from the Hawara Cemetery in the Fayum, Egypt. A few of these portraits from this Cemetery are on canvas, but the great majority on panels of wood. There is a rich purple paint in several of these works, a purple which one might perhaps be inclined to identify with Tyrian purple from Purpura lapillus and other molluscs, but which the examination of certain specimens of ancient pigments leads one to conclude to be a madder derivative. Anyhow, it has lasted, apparently unchanged, for some eighteen centuries. But it must be remembered that these remarkable paintings (Nos. 1,260-1,265, and 1,267-1,270) have been preserved in darkness almost from the time when they were executed by Roman artists in the period 80 to 180 a.d. The other pigments in these paintings are yellow, red and brown ochre, charcoal black, a blue consisting of a copper-calcium silicate, a green from malachite, and perhaps verdigris also. An orange-red pigment may be either red lead or realgar.

The pigments, incorporated with wax, were laid on, in a fused condition, upon a distemper priming.

It happens that some information as to the pigments actually employed by a Greek or Græco-Roman artist of the second century is furnished by six specimens found in one of the Hawara graves by Professor W. M. Flinders Petrie. These pigments were: white, mainly gypsum; yellow ochre having, however, almost the precise hue of true antimony yellow; red lead; dark red due to ferric oxide; pink, probably derived from madder; and the lime-copper silicate, known as Egyptian blue.

As to British pictures in the National Gallery, we can afford space for a few words only. The works of Sir Joshua Reynolds generally show the fading of the crimson lake (from cochineal) in the flesh tints, the vermilion and mineral yellows alone remaining. The picture of the 'Infant Samuel' may be cited as an example of the large and wide cracks caused by the free use of bitumen (in the dark background). Two paintings by J. M. W. Turner may be particularly mentioned. In No. 560, 'Chichester,' the bright lake-reds in the sky have become reduced to brown stains - anything but luminous. In No. 534, the 'San Benedetto, looking towards Fusina,' we notice how, in a group of small clouds near the top of the picture, where vermilion and lake have been introduced, the vermilion remains, but the lake is now a pale yellowish brown.

The good condition of the great majority of the pictures in the National Gallery of British Art at Millbank is worthy of note. In this category may be placed the works of Mr. G. F. Watts, R.A., and a number of other paintings out of which I select a very few for special mention. ' The Death of Chatterton,' by Mr. Henry Wallis (No. 1,575), painted in 1856, was retouched subsequently, so far as the breeches of the dead poet are concerned, the crimson lake originally employed having practically perished. No. 1,685, 'Christ Washing St. Peter's Feet,' by Ford Madox Brown, was completed half a century ago. It shows, so far as one can judge, no signs of deterioration.

Frederic Lord Leighton, The Villa Malta, Rome 1860s Photo © The National Gallery, London.

Of 'The Annunciation,' by D. G. Rossetti (No. 1,210), painted in 1849, the same observation may be made. Anyone familiar with Lord Leighton's practice and with his extreme care in the choice of permanent pigments, would not expect to see any change in No. 1,574, 'The Bath of Psyche,' a work, moreover, which was finished so recently as 1890. To the critic of pigments, paintings of flowers afford much information, partly because they are generally pitched in a very high key, and partly because the living flowers themselves are generally available for comparison with their representations in paint. Two of the pictures by George Lance (Nos. 443 and 1,184) betray the free use made by this accomplished artist of such fugitive pigments as carmine, crimson lake, gamboge and yellow lake.