Naples yellowExperimental re-working of historical recipes and the influence of the glazing process in the in situ analysis of historical artwork

Funding Information: Funding has been provided by the Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia (FCT); The work was carried out at the Associated Laboratory for Green Chemistry – Clean Technologies and Processes (LA/P/0008/2020). Publisher Copyright: © 2023 The Authors Naples yellow was widely used across different types of artwork. Technical studies identified a binary Pb–Sb type as well as modified ternary variants with either zinc or tin in the structure. Although these variants were the object of previous experimental studies, a better understanding of the impact of the glazing procedure on the chromatic, chemical and crystallographic characteristics of the pigment is still lacking. In this work, several historical Naples yellow recipes were re-worked and subsequently applied and fired on test tiles, over a white glaze. The results show that the interaction between pigment and glaze produces important modifications to the colour, chemistry and structure of the pigment. Such modifications will strongly impact the reconstruction of historical recipes, with major consequences for identifying Naples yellow variants on artwork and investigating artistic practices. publishersversion inpress