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MAKING LAKE PIGMENT WITH MADDER: A HISTORICAL RECONSTRUCTION

The Making and Knowing Project, Columbia University
Last updated 2022-01-29 by NJR

Refer also to:

Lake pigments are a type of pigment prepared from organic natural colorants: plant and animal sources. As most organic natural colorants are soluble, they cannot be mixed directly with a binding medium and therefore cannot be used as a pigment. These colorants must therefore be extracted and then made insoluble in order to use them as pigments.

Lake pigments: in general, pigments prepared from soluble natural colorants, formed by precipitating (or adsorbing) the dye onto a colorless or white, insoluble, relatively inert substrate.

Jo Kirby et al, Natural Colorants for Dyeing and Lake Pigments: Practical Recipes and their Historical Sources (Archetype, London, 2014).

The recipes provided here are adapted from the ones provided by Kirby et. al.

Madder Roots

madder-roots

Photo credit: Felicity Ford, 2011, Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License. http://thedomesticsoundscape.com/wordpress/?attachment_id=3451

Botanical name: Rubia tinclorum L.

Chemical class: alizarin (anthraquinone)

Region: Native to Middle East and east Mediterranean, then spread to Europe.

Dye type: Mordant dye.

Range of red-orange-brown dyes obtained from the roots of a bedstraw.

Modernized recipes, adapted for the laboratory (or kitchen)

From the late 14th century to the 17th century, madder lakes seem to be most commonly extracted from madder-dyed wool and not the roots (raw dyestuffs). Recipes from before (antiquity) and after (18th and 19th centuries) tend to extract from the roots directly. Thus, the modern recipes adapted here are from this later period.

There are three modernized versions of the historical recipes:

  1. “Standard” - [Code: ML-Std in Natural Colorants]

    1. Extract madder in water, then add alum, precipitation of pigment with potash
  2. “Standard Reversed” - [Code: ML-EBAl in Natural Colorants]

    1. Extract madder in water, then add potash, precipitation of pigment with alum

    2. Color is said to be a very slightly redder, less brown than Standard

  3. “Standard with Alum Extraction” - [Code: ML-Std in Natural Colorants]

    1. Extraction of madder in alum, precipitation of pigment with potash

    2. Color is said to be a brighter red than Standard

1. Basis for “Standard” madder lake

(19th century)

L. Marcucci, Saggio analitico-chimico sopra i colori minerali e mezzi di procurarsi gli artefatti, gli smalti e le vernici (1816, 2nd edn. Rome: Nella Stamperia di Lino Contedini), p. 121.

Recipe for Lacca rossa di Rubbia: Put 15 lb (5086.08 g) water and one pound (339.07 g) Zealand madder into a glazed earthenware vessel; boil until the liquid is reduced to 12 lb (4068.83 g - that is, by one fifth). Filter through a cloth, pressing out the liquid. Add 8 ounces (226.05 g) rock alum. Pour the liquid into another vase containing a pound (339.07 g) of rain water containing in solution three ounces (84.77 g) of alkaline sodium tartrate or potassium carbonate. Instantly a precipitate is formed, accompanied by effervescence forming a scum on the surface which should be removed. Filter on a cloth filter fitted with blotting paper; wash to remove salts, dry in the shade.

2. Basis for “Standard Reversed” madder lake

(18th century)

C. de Massoul, A Treatise on the Art of Painting and the Composition of Colours (1797, London: published by the author), pp. 208-9.

A version of Marggraf’s recipe (Massoul 1797: 208-9): The Lake the least liable to change is that extracted from Madder. To make this Lake, take Roman alum; when it boils, add some Madder coarsely pulverized, then boil it several times and when cold, filter it through a cloth; afterwards heat it sufficiently to take off the chill and precipitate it with a solution of vegetable fixed Alkali, after which it is washed and dried.

NOTE: The method was devised by Andreas Sigismund Marggraf in about 1771 and variants of it continued in use throughout the nineteenth century. Later versions do not boil the solution during extraction of the madder or allow it to cool down.

3. Basis for “Standard with Alum Extraction”

This recipe is based on the same as recipe 2 above from C. de Massoul, A Treatise on the Art of Painting and the Composition of Colours (1797), but changes when the alum is added so that the colorant is extracted with it.

RECIPE 1: “Standard”

Materials and Equipment (Recipe 1)

Procedure (Recipe 1)

RECIPE 2: “Standard Reversed”

Materials and Equipment (Recipe 2)

Procedure (Recipe 2)

RECIPE 3: “Standard with Alum Extraction”

Materials and Equipment (Recipe 3)

Procedure (Recipe 3)

An Alternative Method To Using Hotplates and Beakers

If you do not have access to hotplates and heat-safe glass beakers, an alternative method uses a water bath or bain-marie (see this cooking blog for more information about bain-maries).

Process

Advantages and Notes