You all probably know by now that I love old apothecary bottles. They appear in almost each photo of my books. I've been collecting them since quite a while but it's getting harder and harder to find them at the flea markets here in Portugal at a reasonable price. What I don't remember is if I ever mentioned to you my other big passion that goes hand in hand with the first, which is collecting artist pigments. I have studied them in school and I was fascinated by their history and evolution. A few years ago, together with my boyfriend who's also a conservator, we started a small collection which has been growing and growing...
Last Saturday at the flea market I got incredibly lucky! Look at these marvelous bottles filled with pigments and dyes! They belonged to an old pharmacy in Porto that recently closed. When I bought them they were all dirty and covered in red powder from one bottle that lost its cap. I couldn't even read their labels. I was just happy to find them and bought them immediately. I thought all were red pigments. At home when I started to clean them, all these beautiful colors were revealed. It turns out that they are samples of old pigments and dyes from England and Germany. It's really great for us to be able to add them to our collection!
Natural, synthetic, mineral, organic, modern, historic... we got it!
And this is just a small part of it :)
And this is just a small part of it :)
