Bluing

Brad Epley asks about laundry bluing as a pigment on ethnographic
materials. Laundry bluing is an artificial ultramarine consisting of
a silicate of sodium and aluminum with sodium sulfite. The powdered
synthetic ultramarine is mixed with sodium carbonate and a starch
and compressed into a tablet. There is no single formula for bluing
as it was made by a variety of manufacturers. In ethnographic
conservation, it is commonly referred to as Reckitt's blue, after
the English manufacturer Reckitts and Sons, although Reckitt's was
not necessarily the source of it all. In my experience it is found
extensively on objects from the South Pacific, but can also be found
on objects from elsewhere around the world; Reckitts had an
international clientele. For more information, see Nancy Odegaard's
paper in the Edinburgh ICOM Preprints, 1996, pps. 634-8.

Catherine Sease
Head, Division of Conservation
The Field Museum
1400 S. Lake Shore Drive
Chicago, IL 60605
312-665-7880
Fax: 312-665-7193

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                  Conservation DistList Instance 13:30
               Distributed: Wednesday, November 17, 1999
                       Message Id: cdl-13-30-010
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