Blue Pigments in South American Painting (1610-1780)

This article shows the results reached by an interdisciplinary team of chemists and art historians following studies of the use of blue pigments in a group of 106 paintings done in the Andes region during the colonial period (1610–1780). It describes the methods employed and the results obtained in the analysis of these pigments, along with important observations on the historical dimension of the practices developed by South American artists of that period.