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 :)
6 comments:
What a fantastic find! I'd have bought them too. Lucky you.
oh what a marvelous shelf packed full of apothecary jars and pigments!! I love all the different shapes and colors :)
Wow Teo this is really wonderful - I was giggling at your profuse collection of bottles. I think you and I are very similar, we can't just have the one, we have to keep searching for MORE MORE MORE! To keep all the others company, of course. ;) I watched a wonderful BBC documentary about Titian several years ago, and how he created his "lapis lazuli" pigment paint. It was most fascinating. You look like you might have some Titian dust on your shelves...
love it! love it when you find a cache of what you covet :)
Good lord those are nice! I have the same insane passion. Even old lab bottles or jars and stuff like that. With some I even fool myself that I need them to store substances, incense and dyes, but we all know he truth...
i, too, look for old pigments and dyes! nice blog, i've been looking in now and then!
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