New Research into paints used in the past
National Trust has established a new laboratory and archive to research paints used in the past
We often think of the past as being black and white but as many paintings and National Trust historic houses show, our predecessors loved using colour in the interiors, collections and wider estates.
Through this project National Trust will be able to learn about the choices behind colours of the past and where those colours came from, using forensic approaches which will greatly improve our understanding of these special historic places.
The archive of paint samples date beck from the second century AD to the present day and covers many thousands of examples gathered across the country over many decades.
The samples include paint taken from paintings, buildings and decorative arts as well as interiors of historic buildings and even exterior woodwork, fences and gates.
The cataloguing of the collection at the new laboratory at the Trust’s Royal Oak Foundation Conservation Centre at Knole near Sevenoaks, will open up access and allow researchers to make use of the vast collection of paint samples from National Trust properties for the first time.
The paint samples were gathered as part of individual research into buildings or objects owned by the Trust over many years. By bringing them together in a single database, it will ensure they will no longer be studied in isolation and will allow comparisons between similar materials to be made more easily.
As well as helping identify the colours used, the samples also reveal materials popular in decorating homes in the past, how tastes and choices of colour changed, and the global trade in pigments and materials used to brighten lives and homes.
In a recent example, an 1881 watercolour painted by William Jackson Browne, the owner of Townend, a historic farmhouse in Cumbria showed a different paint colour for the building’s woodwork. The house timbers had been painted a very dark green for many decades. But after paint sampling confirmed that a dark red shown in the painting was historically correct, the house now been restored to its original colour scheme.
Other vital uses of the paint archive is to enable specialist restorers recreate lost and damaged buildings and artwork to the original specifications as much as possible.
For example at Bath Assembly Rooms a major conservation project will bring new life to the building including recreating oak floors to match the originals lost in Second World War bombing. The paint research included information from a tiny slice through years of paint from a corner of the card room which has been studied to identify a choice of colours used in the past. While several dozen layers were found, it is thought that the most likely choices to match how the room might have been in the past were a Salmon pink and a greenish blue. Similar research is being carried out throughout the building. Paint producers Little Greene are recreating original paints to be used in the refurbishment.
Recent work has included the first ever technical analysis of the painter Carolus Duran, a mentor of John Singer Sargent, confirming evidence of his paint mixing style.
The study has also revealed unusual ingredients in some paintings. Work on a painting by Italian artist Tintoretto, revealed layers of paint composed of real ground gold, partially overlaid with some transparent paint layers.