Lead White or Lead Whites? Reconsideration of Methods of sefidāb-i-sorb Production in Iran

ABSTRACT

Lead white is widely used as a white pigment in the history of Persian painting. This paper focuses on three Persian treatises dated between the twelfth and the sixteenth century, which explained different manufacturing methods of lead white or sefidāb-i-sorb. Experimental reconstruction of each recipe to access the comprehensive meaning of the text and analytical studies with X-ray powder diffraction on products of recipes revealed white compounds other than the previously known products of hydrocerussite (Pb(OH)₂ · PbCO₃) and cerussite (PbCO₃) in samples. Chlorine-containing raw materials mentioned in these recipes lead to the chemical products of laurionite (Pb(OH)Cl), blixite (Pb₈O₅(OH)₂Cl₄), and phosgenite (Pb₂Cl₂(CO)₃) in the final products. These data lead to the hypothesis of the discrepancy of the lead white pigment between Iran and Europe and a marked probability of other compounds in historic Persian lead white samples.

KEYWORDS:

• Lead white
• laurionite
• phosgenite
• blixite
• historic sources
• Persian painting

Acknowledgements

Parviz Holakooei is thanked for his important comments during the research process.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

ORCID

Amir-Hossein Karimy http://orcid.org/0000-0003-0456-6354

Notes

1. Qānoun al-sovar translated to English in Dickson and Welch (1981). This part of the treatise is also translated into English by Barkeshli (2013, 105–6). As the translation could be more accurate from a technical point of view, it is replaced here with a new translation.