Pigments from a paint box from the atelier of the Portuguese painter of the early twentieth century, Aurélia de Sousa

Abstract

Painting materials can provide relevant information about the availability offered to artists within specific periods of time and particular geographical locations, contributing to understand painter´s choices, preferences and limitations. The nineteenth century was, by far, the moment where an unprecedented diversity on pigments and lakes occurred, due the discovery of new metals and the huge advances on inorganic chemistry and on the synthesis of artificial dyestuffs. A painting box containing 36 oil tubes was recovered by the family of the Portuguese painter, Aurélia (1866-1922) atelier, at Quinta da China, Porto. The atelier was shared with her sister, Sofia de Sousa (1870-1960), who ceased painting when Aurélia died. They both studied at the Academia Portuense de Belas Artes, at Porto and later, at the turnover of the 19th century, at the Academie Julian, in Paris. of namely pigments, extenders and lake substrates, SEM-EDS, in to the painting materials actually used previously determined the study of