Ivory Black
(bone black)
Origin, History and Characteristics
Bone black is prepared by charring bones, horns etc. in the absence of air. It is the deepest black but it was not used as widely as charcoal black. Fragments or turnings of ivory, or of the osseous parts of animals are put into a crucible surrounded by burning coals and covered. The ivory or bones, by exposure to the heat, were reduced to charcoal.
Bone Black in Vermeer's Painting
The presence of bone black has been detected only once in the black marble tiles of the Music Lesson. It was also added to natural ultramarine to one down he white tiles in the same painting.
a detail of Vermeer's Music Lesson
How to Paint Your Own Vermeer: Materials and Methods of a Seventeenth-Century Master
Jonathan Janson
2006
