Bruegel’s Color Palette in The Wedding Dance

Identifying the pigments and dyes that artists used in their paintings provides insight into both the historical trade in raw materials for natural pigments (see Part 4) and the technology of the time period because it reveals which synthetic pigments were available. Identifying these pigments also helps us understand how the painting may have originally looked before some of its colorants faded or became discolored—and thus reveals the artist’s original intentions. At the DIA we wanted to gain these insights by examining the palette of e Wedding Dance—the range of specific pigments Bruegel used to create the painting—and the way he prepared, stored, and worked with those pigments. To assess the pigment components of the paint layers in e Wedding Dance, we performed visible near-infrared fiber optics reflectance spectroscopy (VIS-NIR FORS), X-ray fluorescence (XRF) spectroscopy, and liquid chromatography-mass spectroscopy (LC-MS).153 Colorants in paintings are made from pigments (inorganic) or dyes (organic). Natural pigments are derived from minerals, whereas natural dyes are extracted from plants and animals. “ere are also synthetic pigments and dyes that are manufactured. We identified the following colorants in the Wedding Dance: cochineal red lake, vermilion, lead white, carbon black, azurite, smalt, a copper-based green (possibly malachite or verdigris), lead tin yellow, and iron oxide earth pigments like yellow ochre and earth browns (table 5.1).154 Many of the pigments and their mixtures have also been found in Bruegel’s other works.155 Most notably, some green areas (such as the grass in the foreground) are made with combinations of lead tin yellow and azurite.156 Bruegel’s use of cochineal has not previously been reported. Cochineal is a dye derived from insects, and it is indicated in several pink areas of the painting. “is identification required the removal of a small sample analysis with LC-MS.157 Results confirmed the presence of carminic acid, the primary red colorant in several cochineal insect dyes that have been used historically: American cochineal (Dactylopius coccus), Polish cochineal (Porphyrophora polonica), and Armenian cochineal (Porphyrophora hamelii). “e analysis was not able to distinguish among these three di™erent species of cochineal insects; however, archival research suggests that it is likely American cochineal.158 “is bright red dye is extracted from a species of insects that host on paddle cacti, and Mesoamerican and South American