Gamblin 1980 Oils - PBk9 Ivory Black

Ivory Black: A good, all-purpose black that’s a solid choice for mixing greys, tinting, and mixing with other colours. Slightly warm in its transparency with a weak tinting strength.

PIGMENT COMPOSITION AND PERMANENCE

• Pigment Name: PBk9 Ivory Black (charred animal bone)
• Pigment Type: charred animal bone

PROPERTIES

Ivory Black is a cool, semi-transparent blue-black with a slight brownish undertone and average tinting strength. It mixes well with any colour and creates a range of dull greens when mixed with yellow. It has good properties for use in oil, can be slow to dry in oil form, and should never be used in underpainting or frescoing. Ivory Black is denser than Lamp Black.

PERMANENCE

Ivory Black is very lightfast and has good permanence, though it is considered the least permanent of the primary black pigments.

TOXICITY

Ivory Black has no significant hazards.

HISTORY

Ivory Black is a carbon-based black first named Elephantium and was described in the 4th century BCE as being produced by heating ivory scraps in clay pots to reduce the ivory or bone to charcoal. The deviation in names is because the more expensive varieties of this pigment were made by burning ivory, and the less expensive ones by burning animal bones.

In the 19th century, the name Ivory Black was finally permitted to be applied to Carbon Black pigments made from bone. Genuine Ivory Black is rare in modern times due to the protection of ivory, and the synthetic variety produced today was discovered in 1929. Bone Black is created as an industrial pigment.