View metadata, citation and similar papers at core.ac.uk brought to you by CORE provided by UCL Discovery 1 European cobalt sources identified in the production of 2 Chinese famille rose porcelain 3 4 Rita Giannini1, Ian C. Freestone2, Andrew J. Shortland1 5 6 1 Cranfield Forensic Institute 7 Cranfield University 8 Defence Academy of the United Kingdom 9 Shrivenham 10 Wilts 11 SN6 8LA 12
[email protected] 13 14 2 Institute of Archaeology 15 UCL 16 31-34 Gordon Square 17 London WC1H 0PY 18 Abstract 19 The blue pigments on 112 fragments or small objects of Qing Dynasty Chinese, 20 95 of underglaze blue and white and 17 overglaze enamelled porcelains were 21 analysed by LA-ICPMS. The underglaze blues on both blue and white and 22 polychrome objects were created with a cobalt pigment that was rich in 23 manganese with lesser nickel and zinc. This suite of accessory elements is 24 generally considered to be characteristic of local, Chinese, sources of pigments. 25 However, the blue enamels were very different. The cobalt pigment here has low 26 levels of manganese and instead is rich in nickel, zinc, arsenic and bismuth. No 27 Chinese source of cobalt with these characteristics is known, but they closely 28 match the elements found in the contemporary cobalt source at Erzgebirge in 29 Germany. Textual evidence has been interpreted to suggest that some enamel 30 pigment technologies were transferred from Europe to China, but this is the first 31 analytical evidence to be found that an enamel pigment itself was imported.