Ivory black
Description
An impure black carbon pigment originally prepared from charred ivory or horns. Ivory black is a fine-grain, dense black pigment. Current formulations of ivory black usually contain a fine grade of bone black with some Prussian blue. Bone black contains about 10% carbon along with 84% calcium hydroxyapatite with smaller amounts of magnesium phosphate and calcium carbonate. Ivory black is a stable blue-black pigment that is denser than carbon black and has a good working quality for oil paints and watercolors.
Synonyms and Related Terms
bone black; Pigment Black 9; CI 77267; Elfenbeinschwarz (Deut.); negro marfil (Esp.); noir d'ivoire (Fr.); mayro elefantodontoy (Gr.); nero d'avorio (It.); ivoorzwart (Ned.); negro de marfim (Port.); abaiser; animal black; drop black; Frankfort black; German black, Paris black
Other Properties
Particles irregularly shaped
ASTM (1999) lightfastness = I (excellent)
| Refractive Index | 1.65-1.70 |
|---|
Hazards and Safety
No significant hazards.
Authority
- The Dictionary of Art, Grove's Dictionaries Inc., New York, 1996 Comment: "Pigment"
- R. J. Gettens, G.L. Stout, Painting Materials, A Short Encyclopaedia, Dover Publications, New York, 1966
- M. Doerner, The Materials of the Artist, Harcourt, Brace & Co., 1934
- Reed Kay, The Painter's Guide To Studio Methods and Materials, Prentice-Hall, Inc., Englewood Cliffs, NJ, 1983
- Ralph Mayer, A Dictionary of Art Terms and Techniques, Harper and Row Publishers, New York, 1969 (also 1945 printing)
- R.D. Harley, Artists' Pigments c. 1600-1835, Butterworth Scientific, London, 1982
- 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
- Thomas Gregory, The Condensed Chemical Dictionary, Reinhold Publishing, New York, 3rd ed., 1942
- G.S.Brady, Materials Handbook, McGraw-Hill Book Co., New York, 1971 Comment: p. 108
- The American Heritage Dictionary or Encarta, via Microsoft Bookshelf 98, Microsoft Corp., 1998
- Michael McCann, Artist Beware, Watson-Guptill Publications, New York City, 1979
- Monona Rossol, The Artist's Complete Health and Safety Guide, Allworth Press, New York, 1994
- Art and Architecture Thesaurus Online, http://www.getty.edu/research/tools/vocabulary/aat/, J. Paul Getty Trust, Los Angeles, 2000