Charles Explorer logo
🇬🇧

Vivianite: A historic blue pigment and its degradation under scrutiny

Publication at Faculty of Science |
2013

Abstract

Vivianite is a mineral that was used as a blue painting pigment. However, in several artworks, vivianite has degraded to grey or yellowish colour.

Our study confirmed the following degradation series caused by oxidation: vivianite-metavivianite-Fe3+ analogue of metavivianite-santabarbaraite. A procedure of identification of vivianite or its degradation products in microsamples of painted artworks was suggested (SEM-EDS followed by mu-ATR mu-FTIR).

Vivianite was synthesized by an optimized method and model samples with water and linseed stand oil were created. These were subjected to artificial ageing in a climate chamber by intense UV light; these experiments are on-going.