About the Project
The Pigmentum Project is an ongoing programme to develop and catalogue quality data on historical pigments. Its cutting-edge research and superlative technology is dedicated to providing the definitive picture of the field.
Publications and Projects
The Pigmentum Project have published two definitive reference works, and a number of academic papers.
The Pigment Compendium is a pair of definitive reference works on the historical terminology and optical microscopy of pigments.
Consisting of two books, A Dictionary of Historical Pigments and Optical Microscopy of Historical Pigments, the Compendium is also available as a searchable database containing all of the information presented in the books.
Lazurite is a database program designed to facilitate the documentation of objects and technical information.
Organising data into a searchable format, Lazurite allows the creation of a comprehensive database containing a huge variety of possible inputs. Specific objects, large-scale images, pigment samples and past analyses are all tied together into a searchable, user-friendly format.
In Depth
You can read more about the aims and scope of the Pigmentum Project here.
If you'd like to know about the people behind the project, visit the team page.
Get Involved
The Project often makes its extensive collection of historical pigments available to interested researchers. Placements with the Project are also occasionally available.
Recent News
Welcome to our new website
The Pigmentum Project is pleased and proud to present its new website.
Pigmentum welcomes Peter Paul Biro
We are delighted to welcome Peter Paul Biro into our circle of collaborators. Paul, based in Montreal, Canada, is a conservator by training, but has many years’ experience as a microscopic analyst working on paintings.
‘Art and Microscopy’ conference
Pigmentum provided a major contribution to the highly successful ‘Art and Microscopy’ conference held by the Royal Microscopical Society at the National Portrait Gallery in London.
Pigmentum joins University of Oxford
It is an honour for Pigmentum to announce that it is formally joining up with the University of Oxford, becoming a semi-autonomous research group within the School of Archaeology.
Pigment Compendium errata
The Project has released some errata for the Pigment Compendium.