Concept · The Painter's Colors
Reds
Reds came in two kinds: mineral and made reds such as vermilion and red lead, and lakes, which turn root or insect dyes into pigment (see Color Theory, Where Pigments Come From).
Vermilion is mercury sulfide, and toxic; red lead is made by heating lead white. By Cennini's time vermilion too was made chemically and bought ready-made from the apothecary. He warned that on walls it turns black.
- Cochineal insects, raised on prickly-pear cactus, earned Spain more than almost anything it took from the Americas except silver.
- Synthetic alizarin, the madder dye made from coal tar in 1868, quickly ended the madder-growing trade.
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