Description
This colour is achieved using French Ultramarine Blue, a pigment developed in 1826 by Jean Guimet, a French chemist. Chemically identical to powdered lapis lazuli from Afghanistan, the finest and most expensive blue used by Renaissance painters and described by Cennini as ‘beautiful and most perfect’. Due to its cost, lapis lazuli was reserved for important subjects including the robes of the Virgin Mary, and for the turban in Vermeer’s ‘Girl with a Pearl Earring’.