Posted by John:
I recall reading somewhere that lapis lazuli was the only blue pigment that had any durability until modern chemistry produced shades of blue, and that the only European source of LL was a mine in SW Asia; hence LL paints were literally worth their weight in gold (or more), and blues are hard to find in paintings made before modern times.
John,
That is essentially correct, although azurite and Egyptian blue are lightfast in most circumstances (there are cases where azurite altered to green). For Europeans and Asians, the source of lapis lazuli was Afghanistan. The natives of South America extracted the rock in Chile for many centuries before the arrival of the Europeans.
There were a number of blue pigments available before our modern industrial epoch: indigo, azurite, sodalite, Egyptian blue, cobalt blue, smalt and the little known mineral Riebeckite.
