Anthony van Dyck, The Abbé Scaglia Adoring the Virgin and Child

This pigment analysis is based on the work of the scientists at the National Gallery London (1). The scientists employed x-ray radiography (XRR), energy dispersive x-ray spectroscopy (EDX), and x-ray diffraction (XRD)  to gain insights into the inner layers of the painting and to identify the pigments.

1 Blue sky: high-quality natural ultramarine mixed with lead white.

2 Greyish-mauve parts of the sky: charcoal black mixed with white and some red lake and red ochre.

3 Virgin’s red drapery: mid-tones are painted first with vermilion mixed with white, then the shadows are overpainted with unmixed red-brown ochre. The upper layer consists of red lake and white and red lake glazes with charcoal black in the dark areas of the folds.
4 Virgin’s blue drapery: the shadows were first painted with indigo mixed with white, the mid-tones contain a little more white. The upper layers are glazes of natural ultramarine of varying thickness.

5 Background curtain: indigo with little white or in darker areas a glaze of very intense indigo over a mid-green underlayer consisting of azurite mixed with lead-tin yellow. On the right side the underlayer consists of black, white with red ochre and brown ochre, the glaze is again indigo.

References

(1) Ashok Roy, The National Gallery’s Van Dycks: Technique and Development, National Gallery Technical Bulletin, Volume 20, 1999, pp. 70-73. Available as pdf.

(1) Ashok Roy, The National Gallery’s Van Dycks: Technique and Development, National Gallery Technical Bulletin, Volume 20, 1999, pp. 70-73. Available as pdf.

(2) Arabella Cifani and Franco Monetti, New Light on the Abbé Scaglia and Van Dyck, The Burlington Magazine, Vol. 134, No. 1073 (Aug., 1992), pp. 506-514.

(3) Liedtke, Walter A, “Anthony van Dyck“: The Metropolitan Museum of Art Bulletin, v. 42, no. 3 (Winter, 1984–1985). Available as pdf.