Lake

Description

An organic pigment prepared by precipitation of a dye on a powdered, inorganic substrate. Because of its transparency, alumina trihydrate, is the most commonly used substrate or carrier. Baryte (barium sulfate), produces an opaque lake pigment. Other compounds used as carriers are: chalk, clay, gypsum, zinc oxide, white earth, and green earth. Often a mordant, such as tannic acid, lactic acid, or sodium phosphate, is used to fix the dye to the substrate. Many natural dyes were made into lake pigments, such as cochineal, kermes, madder, and lac for use in oil painting. Some modern synthetic dyes, such as aniline dyes, are also prepared in this manner for use as paint pigments. Lake pigments are used in painting, printing inks, plastic colorants, and coated fabrics.

Synonyms and Related Terms

lakes; lake pigments; laca (Esp., Port.)

Authority

• Reed Kay, Reed Kay, The Painter's Guide To Studio Methods and Materials, Prentice-Hall, Inc., Englewood Cliffs, NJ, 1983

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

• ASTM, ASTM, "Standard Terminology Relating to Paint, Varnish, Lacquer and Related Products", Annual Book of ASTM Standards, Section 6, Paints, Related Coatings and Aromatics, ASTM, D16, 7-Jan, Jul-96

• R.D. Harley, R.D. Harley, Artists' Pigments c. 1600-1835, Butterworth Scientific, London, 1982

• Matt Roberts, Don Etherington, 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

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