Venetian red

Venetian red

Description

A permanent, reddish brown pigment. Venetian red was originally prepared from a natural red ocher. By the 18th century, Venetian red was being manufactured by calcining ferrous sulfate (copperas) with lime or calcium carbonate. Venetian red contains about 15-40% ferric oxide and 60-80% calcium sulfate. Venetian red is used in oil paints, house paints, and as a paper colorant.

Synonyms and Related Terms

India red; Indian red; scarlet red; terra rosa; iron oxide red; roasted iron oxide

FTIR (MFA)

Raman (MFA)

Physical and Chemical Properties

• Density = 3.45

Resources and Citations

• R. J. Gettens, G.L. Stout, Painting Materials, A Short Encyclopaedia, Dover Publications, New York, 1966

• Ralph Mayer, A Dictionary of Art Terms and Techniques, Harper and Row Publishers, New York, 1969 (also 1945 printing)

• Richard S. Lewis, Hawley's Condensed Chemical Dictionary, Van Nostrand Reinhold, New York, 10th ed., 1993

• Michael McCann, Artist Beware, Watson-Guptill Publications, New York City, 1979

• Matt Roberts, Don Etherington, Bookbinding and the Conservation of Books: a Dictionary of Descriptive Terminology, U.S. Government Printing Office, Washington DC, 1982

• Dictionary of Building Preservation, Ward Bucher, ed., John Wiley & Sons, Inc., New York City, 1996

• Random House, Webster's Encyclopedic Unabridged Dictionary of the English Language, Grammercy Book, New York, 1997

• The American Heritage Dictionary or Encarta, via Microsoft Bookshelf 98, Microsoft Corp., 1998

• Art and Architecture Thesaurus Online, https://www.getty.edu/research/tools/vocabulary/aat/, J. Paul Getty Trust, Los Angeles, 2000