Venetian red is a light and warm (somewhat unsaturated) pigment that is a darker
shade of red. The composition of Venetian red changed over time. Originally it consisted of natural
ferric oxide
Iron(III) oxide or ferric oxide is the inorganic compound with the formula . It occurs in nature as the mineral hematite, which serves as the primary source of iron for the steel industry. It is also known as red iron oxide, especially when us ...
(Fe
2O
3, partially
hydrated) obtained from the
red hematite. Modern versions are frequently made with synthetic red iron oxide produced via
calcination
Calcination is thermal treatment of a solid chemical compound (e.g. mixed carbonate ores) whereby the compound is raised to high temperature without melting under restricted supply of ambient oxygen (i.e. gaseous O2 fraction of air), generally f ...
of
green vitriol (a.k.a.
copperas
Iron(II) sulfate or ferrous sulfate (British English: sulphate instead of sulfate) denotes a range of salts with the formula Fe SO4ยท''x''H2O. These compounds exist most commonly as the heptahydrate (''x'' = 7), but several values for ...
) mixed with white
chalk
Chalk is a soft, white, porous, sedimentary carbonate rock. It is a form of limestone composed of the mineral calcite and originally formed deep under the sea by the compression of microscopic plankton that had settled to the sea floor. Ch ...
. The pigment contains up to 50% of the ferric oxide.
Historically, Venetian red was a red earth color often used in
Italian Renaissance painting
Italian Renaissance painting is the painting of the period beginning in the late 13th century and flourishing from the early 15th to late 16th centuries, occurring in the Italian Peninsula, which was at that time divided into many political stat ...
s. It was also called
sinopia
Sinopia (also known as sinoper, named after the now Turkish city Sinop, Turkey, Sinop) is a dark reddish-brown natural earth pigment, whose reddish colour comes from hematite, a dehydrated form of iron oxide. It was widely used in Classical A ...
because the best-quality pigment came from the port of
Sinop in northern Turkey. It was the major ingredient in the pigment called ', described by the 15th-century Italian painter and writer
Cennino Cennini
Cennino d'Andrea Cennini (; – before 1427) was an Italian painter influenced by Giotto. He was a student of Agnolo Gaddi in Florence. Gaddi trained under his father, called Taddeo Gaddi, who trained with Giotto. He is remembered mainly f ...
in his handbook on painting, ''Il libro dell'arte''. Cennini recommended mixing Venetian red with
lime white, in proportions of two to one, to paint the skin tones of faces, hands and nudes.
The first recorded use of Venetian red as a color name in
English was in 1753.
[ Maerz and Paul, ''A Dictionary of Color'', New York: McGraw-Hill 1930, page 201; Color sample of ''Venetian red'': page 35 Plate 6 color sample I12 ] There are many other names for the
iron oxide red pigments of different shades, with
Spanish red being very similar.
References
Sources
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{{Shades of red, Red
Shades of red
Iron oxide pigments