Set of 5 tubes of red ochre, a natural iron oxide pigment, or a mixed set of both red and yellow ochres. Artists, please read the note below.
Red ochre forms from the weathering of hematite. When used as a pigment it contains clay. This red ochre has been screened but is otherwise as collected. It comes from San Bernardino County, California. A similar red ochre from the Flathead Sandstone near Rawlins, Wyoming was used as a pigment in the initial painting of the cables of the Brooklyn Bridge. Currier & Ives made a number of lithographs around 1883 that show the bridge with Rawlins Red on the cables. Click on the image of the bridge to enlarge, then click again to make it even bigger. We would be happy to send a jpeg of a detail from two of these early lithographs showing this use. Click on either image to enlarge, click again for an even closer view.
Red ochre becomes earthy and powdered with advanced weathering. Because it was forming in an arid region, it was not leached or washed away from the original deposit of hematite. We also have red ochre from the deposit near Rawlins, Wyoming. This material is coarser, but we can milll it upon request. Give your red pigment some history.
Artists! An artist customer milled some of this red ochre in his coffee grinder (!) and was happy with the result. He found it slightly redder. We are now milling this material, so if you would like red ochre with a fine powder-like consistency and a slightly redder shade than what we mine, please request the artist's version. You can ask for some tubes milled, others not milled, to get a mixed set of 5 tubes. Just let us know how many of which type you want us to ship.
We also have yellow ochre. You can purchase it separately, or you can ask us to substitute yellow ochre for any number of the tubes of red.
The weight of the ochre in these tubes is 3.6 ounces.
Photos show the New York Tower of the Brooklyn Bridge, ca. 1883, from a Currier & Ives lithograph, The Great East River Suspension Bridge. At least 19 versions of this print were produced, some showing the cables as red, many showing the cables painted gray. The red may have been used as an undercoat. Would you like a copy of this? We would be happy to send a jpeg.
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