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Title: Naples yellow
Original Title: Jaune de Naples
Volume and Page: Vol. 8 (1765), p. 476
Author: Unknown
Translator: Abigail Wendler Bainbridge [West Dean College]
Subject terms:
Painting
Original Version (ARTFL): Link
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This text is protected by copyright and may be linked to without seeking permission. Please see http://quod.lib.umich.edu/d/did/terms.html for information on reproduction.

URL: http://hdl.handle.net/2027/spo.did2222.0003.068
Citation (MLA): "Naples yellow." The Encyclopedia of Diderot & d'Alembert Collaborative Translation Project. Translated by Abigail Wendler Bainbridge. Ann Arbor: Michigan Publishing, University of Michigan Library, 2013. Web. [fill in today's date in the form 18 Apr. 2009 and remove square brackets]. <http://hdl.handle.net/2027/spo.did2222.0003.068>. Trans. of "Jaune de Naples," Encyclopédie ou Dictionnaire raisonné des sciences, des arts et des métiers, vol. 8. Paris, 1765.
Citation (Chicago): "Naples yellow." The Encyclopedia of Diderot & d'Alembert Collaborative Translation Project. Translated by Abigail Wendler Bainbridge. Ann Arbor: Michigan Publishing, University of Michigan Library, 2013. http://hdl.handle.net/2027/spo.did2222.0003.068 (accessed [fill in today's date in the form April 18, 2009 and remove square brackets]). Originally published as "Jaune de Naples," Encyclopédie ou Dictionnaire raisonné des sciences, des arts et des métiers, 8:476 (Paris, 1765).

Naples yellow is a dry rock, and pitted like our common rocks that we put in foundations with chalk and sand to give it body; however, it is friable. It is mined from the area around Mount Vesuvius, near Naples, and contains much sulfur; [1] it is very acrid, which one can only remove by soaking it in water, and changing it every day; after this the salt [2] penetrates through the vessel, and appears completely white on the outside; one must also reduce it to powder before letting it soak, & when one burns it on porphyry, [3] never use an iron knife to gather it up, because iron turns it green and black; but for that one can use a knife made of chestnut wood; this color is very good in oil as well as in water.

Notes

1. Naples yellow, or lead antimoniate, was a synthetic pigment and through a misunderstanding many contemporary authors thought it was found or made near Vesuvius or Naples, and that it contained sulfur. See Nicholas Eastaugh, Pigment Compendium: a Dictionary and Optical Microscopy of Historical Pigments (Amsterdam; Boston; London: Butterworth-Heinemann, 2008).

2. The sulfur.

3. See Porphyre.