Are You Curious (Yellow)?

Perspectives from The Artist's Road

Chrysanthemums 1881-82 Pierre-Auguste Renoir
(with Naples Yellow)

Naples Yellow has always been a favorite pigment of ours in both oil and watercolor paints. It evokes the color of warm sunlight on a whitewashed building overlooking the Mediterranean. Naples is one of the oldest synthetic pigments, originally found in ceramic glazes and glass dating back to around 1500 BC in Egypt. Its original composition was a lead compound (lead white) mixed with an antimony (a metallic element) compound producing a very toxic but lightfast color. It had strong tinting strength and was considered chemically stable. There is no known explanation for the name “Naples”, but some speculate it is related to the yellow minerals that can be found in Mount Vesuvius on the Gulf of Naples.