re: #71 Decatur Deb

Most expensive pigment of the late middle ages. Giotto warped the world market for this:

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Yep, reading about the history of pigments is one of the subjects I really enjoy. Some of it is really crazy—not only the expense & lengths people had to go to to obtain certain colors, but also the source of some colors like “mummy brown” (also referred to caput mortuum, which is a sort of dark violet brown iron oxide pigment in use today).

BTW, if anyone loves looking at colors, there’s a German color mill named Kermer Pigments that has a store in NYC, and their website has my favorite online catalog ever: kremerpigments.com