dn the Colours used in Painting ly the Ancients. 351 



tlian the use to which they have been apphed by the greatest 

 painter of modern times, in his excjuisite performances in t!ie 

 Vatican. In these and in other works of the same age, the ef- 

 fect of the ancient models is obvious ; and the various copies 

 and imitations that have been made of these remains of antiquity 

 have transferred their spirit into modern art, and left little to be 

 desired as to those results which the skill of the painter can 

 c'ommand. There remains, however, another use to which they 

 mav be applied, that of making us acquainted with the nature 

 and chemical compasitioji of the colours used by the Greek and 

 Roman artists. The works of Theophrastus, DIoscorides, Vi- 

 truvius, and Pliny, contain descriptions of the substances used 

 by the ancients as pigments ; but hitherto, I believe, no experi- 

 mental attempt has been made to identify them, or to imitate 

 sucli of them as are peculiar*. In the following pages I shall 

 have the honour of offering to the Society an investigation of 

 this subject. My experiments have been made upon colours 

 found in the baths of Titus, and the ruins called the baths of 

 Livia, and in the remains of other palaces and l)aths of ancient 

 Rome, and in the ruins of Pompeii. By the kindness of my 

 friend, the celebrated Canova, who is charged with the care of 

 the works connected with ancient art in Rome, I have been en- 

 abled to select, with my own hands, specimens of the different 

 pigments that have been found in vases discovered in the exca- 

 vations lately made beneath the ruins of the palace of Titus, 

 and to compare them with the colours fixed on the walls or de- 

 tached in fragments of stucco: and Signer Nelli, the proprietor 

 of the Nozze Aldobrandine, with great Hberality permitted me to 

 make such experiments upon the colours of this celebrated pic- 

 ture, as were necessary to determine their nature. When the 

 preservation of a work of art was concerned, I made my re- 

 searches upon mere atoms of the colour, taken from a place 

 where tiie loss was imperceptible: and without having injured 

 any of the precious remains of antiquity, I flatter myself, I shall 

 be able to give some information not without interest to scien- 

 tific men as well as to artists, and not wholly devoid of practical 

 applications. 



* In tlie 70tl) volume of the Annales de Chlmie, page 22, M. Chaptal Iia> 

 published a paper on seven colours found in a colour-shop at i^ompcu. 

 Four of those he found to he natural colours, ochres, a spccimeu of Verona 

 green, and one of pumice stone. Two of them were blue?, which he con- 

 siders as coiiipmirrds of alumine and lime with oxide of copper, and the laet 

 a pale rose colour, which he rejiards as analogous to the lake formed by 

 ifixins; tht colouring matter of madder upon nluinine. I shall aiiain refer 

 to the observations of iVI. Chaptal in the cotiree of this pape^r. It will be 

 f'jund on pc.-usal, that they do not superiede the inquiry mentioned in the 

 text. 



II. Of 



