Toxic Pigments in Art History: From Scheele's Green to Cinnabar

The article examines three historically toxic pigments: Scheele's Green, lead white, and cinnabar/vermilion. Scheele's Green, invented in 1775 by Swedish chemist Carl Wilhelm Scheele, contained arsenic and was used in paints, wallpapers, textiles, and clothing. Its dangers became widely recognized after the 1861 death of artificial flower worker Matilda Scheurer, with caricatures in Punch depicting women as 'walking poison.' Lead white, prized since antiquity for luminosity, was used in oil painting by artists like Vermeer in 'Girl with a Pearl Earring' and as cosmetic ceruse by Elizabeth I. It caused saturnism in painters such as Caravaggio and Goya. Cinnabar (mercury sulfide) has been used since the Neolithic period, including at Çatalhöyük and in Mesoamerica. In ancient Rome, Pliny the Elder described masks for workers. A 1986 New Yorker article reported a conservator falling ill from handling cinnabar contaminated with red lead. At Valencina de la Concepción (c. 2900–2650 BCE), high-status women showed extreme mercury levels from ritual cinnabar use.