Color: Ultramarine Blue | Country: Afghanistan

A series of 700-800 AD paintings in Badakshan, revealed caveman painted the earliest known usage of the ultramarine pigment. This dazzling, vivid blue hue was mined from the mountains of Afghanistan and given a name meaning “beyond the sea”. Its mystical beauty has fascinated artists for centuries.

Ultramarine is derived from the lazirite found in lapis lazuli stone and required a painstaking process that involved grinding and heating the stone with wax, resin, and lineseed oil to separate out the other minerals, with 1 kg producing only 30g of pigment. It was so expensive to produce, it was worth more than gold. An artist would often charge separately for the pigment on an invoice so the patron could choose how much they wanted to pay for. Johannes Vermeer painted so liberally with ultramarine that he almost drove his family into bankruptcy.

In 1826 a synthetic version of ultramarine was developed, and became known as French Ultramarine. This synthetic blue, due to its lack of mineral inclusions, boasts a richer tone than its semiprecious predecessor. Traditionalists such as Andrew Wyeth insisted on grinding the original, at great personal expense, even with the artificial paint readily available.

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