Lapis lazuli is often introduced as a blue gemstone that became an expensive pigment. After more than twenty-five years working with the stone, I find that description too simple. Lapis is a geology, a history of trade, a problem of separation, and finally a colour that behaves differently according to how the artist prepares and places it.
I began seriously working with lapis pigment in 2004. The first lesson came quickly: a beautiful blue stone does not automatically become a beautiful blue pigment when it is crushed. The blue has to be understood, separated and prepared. That practical difficulty is the reason natural ultramarine became one of the most celebrated materials in the history of painting.
This guide keeps the essential ideas of my original 2023 article—its history, value, importance to artists and continued use today—but develops them with the workshop detail, historical sources and conservation research the subject deserves.
What Is Lapis Lazuli Pigment?
Lapis lazuli pigment is a natural blue artist pigment prepared from lapis lazuli rock. The most useful distinction is between the raw stone and the painter's colour: lapis lazuli is the rock; natural ultramarine is the blue pigment traditionally refined from it.
Lapis lazuli is not a single mineral. It is a rock in which the principal blue phase is usually lazurite, accompanied in varying proportions by minerals that can include calcite, pyrite and other silicates. The familiar gold-coloured specks are generally pyrite, not gold. White or pale areas are commonly associated with calcite and other light-coloured constituents.
The blue-bearing phase
A sodalite-group mineral central to the colour of high-quality lapis. Modern mineral science associates the intense colour with sulfur species held within its aluminosilicate framework.
Why selection matters
Pale mineral material can lower chromatic intensity when the whole rock is simply ground together. Traditional refining therefore became a craft of separation, not merely pulverisation.
When I look at a piece of lapis, I no longer see only “blue stone.” I look at the distribution of blue, pale veins, pyrite, density, fracture and how I expect the material to behave once reduced. Jewellery quality and pigment quality overlap, but they are not identical questions.
Where Does the Blue of Lapis Lazuli Come From?
The blue is associated primarily with lazurite. Its colour does not come from a conventional metallic blue element such as cobalt. Instead, research on sodalite-group materials has shown that sulfur radical species enclosed within the mineral framework are responsible for the characteristic ultramarine colour.1
For an artist, the practical consequence is more important than the formula: the colour belongs to a mineral structure. Processing, particle distribution, associated colourless minerals, binder and paint-film thickness all influence what the eye finally sees.
Why Grinding Lapis Lazuli Is Not the Same as Making Natural Ultramarine
The original version of this article described the stone as being “ground into a fine powder.” That is broadly true, but it leaves out the most important part of the craft.
If you simply grind the whole rock, you grind the pale minerals into the blue as well. A vivid piece of lapis can therefore produce a much duller powder than a beginner expects. Historical pigment makers solved this by developing procedures that enriched the blue fraction.
Cennino Cennini's Il Libro dell'Arte, written around the turn of the fifteenth century, devotes a full chapter to ultramarine and describes far more than grinding. His account includes careful reduction of the stone, incorporation into a special wax-resinous paste, and extraction in an alkaline liquid so that blue material can be separated in successive fractions.2
This is also why prepared artist-grade lapis pigment should not automatically be aggressively reground. De Mairo's current pigments are supplied already refined for paint making; the glass muller disperses pigment in binder rather than serving as a mill for raw stone. You can see that distinction in our Gemstone Watercolour Paint-Making Kit.
From Badakhshan to the Painter's Workshop
Lapis lazuli has been valued as stone for thousands of years, with Afghanistan's Badakhshan region among its most famous historic sources. Long before the material became a major European painting pigment, lapis travelled through ancient trade networks and was used for jewellery, inlay, carved objects and luxury arts.
Its story as a refined artist pigment becomes particularly important in manuscript and panel-painting traditions. In medieval Europe the name ultramarine came to signify a colour arriving from “beyond the sea.” By the late Middle Ages and Renaissance, fine natural ultramarine was among the most prestigious blues available to painters.
Price varied by period, place and grade, so I prefer not to repeat the internet slogan “always more expensive than gold” as if it were a universal price list. What is securely established is that fine natural ultramarine could be exceptionally costly, that patrons could pay specifically for it, and that painters often used it strategically in important passages.
Lapis moved through geology, trade, manuscript culture and painting workshops long before it became a modern artist material.
This article keeps the history concise so it does not duplicate our longer journal essay. For the trade routes, ancient uses, Renaissance prestige, Persian manuscripts and the longer chronology, continue to The History of Lapis Lazuli: The Blue That Was Worth More Than Gold.
What the Old Recipes Actually Tell Us
One of the pleasures of studying historical pigments is discovering how observant the old workshops were. They had no Raman microscope, SEM-EDS or modern crystallography, yet their recipes record repeated practical encounters with the material.
Cennino Cennini and the pastello
Cennini's account is the best-known early European description. The ground lapis is incorporated into a wax-resinous mass and manipulated in an alkaline solution, releasing blue particles. Successive extractions can differ in quality. The method makes sense once we stop thinking of pigment making as “grinding a gemstone” and start thinking of it as mineral separation.
Merrifield and the survival of workshop recipes
Mary Philadelphia Merrifield's monumental 1849 Original Treatises on the Arts of Painting gathered and translated historical technical manuscripts from roughly the twelfth to eighteenth centuries. For anyone studying old colour manufacture, it is invaluable because it lets us compare recipes instead of treating one text as the only tradition.3
What I take from these texts
I do not follow an old recipe merely because it is old. I ask why it worked. What was the maker trying to separate? What changed in the wash? Why was one fraction preferred to another? When historical craft is read beside modern conservation science, the old instructions become much more intelligible.
Lājvard in Persian and Islamic Painting Traditions
A serious history of lapis cannot begin in Afghanistan, jump to Venice and then stay entirely in Europe. Persian and Islamic manuscript traditions developed sophisticated relationships with blue and gold much closer to the stone's geographic source.
In Persian sources, lājvard is an important historical term, but it must be interpreted carefully: historical colour names do not always correspond perfectly to modern mineralogical identities. Recent conservation scholarship has compared numerous Persian and Islamic written sources and documented several approaches to preparing and refining materials described as lājvard.4
The Metropolitan Museum of Art notes that in fine fifteenth-century Persian manuscripts, a very fine blue made from lapis lazuli was used with gold as a dominant colour, and technical discussions of the Shahnameh of Shah Tahmasp repeatedly emphasize the extraordinary richness of its ultramarine.
For me this broadens the artistic lineage. Natural ultramarine belongs not to one school, one religion or one continent. It travelled through workshops, courts, manuscript traditions and painting cultures across a vast geography.
The Old Masters Who Worked With Natural Ultramarine
The earlier article named Michelangelo and Titian. I am keeping that idea, but correcting and greatly extending it. Rather than attaching famous names to blue paint, the examples below focus on works where museum or conservation sources document natural ultramarine or explicitly identify lapis lazuli.
Duccio di Buoninsegna
c. 1255–1318 · SienaIn The Healing of the Man Born Blind, Christ's vivid cloak is identified by the National Gallery as ultramarine made from lapis lazuli and used in egg tempera. The expensive blue helps establish visual and devotional hierarchy.
What he teaches us: material value can become part of composition.The Limbourg Brothers
Active early 15th century · Manuscript illuminationConservation research on the Belles Heures identified lapis-derived ultramarine used throughout the manuscript. On a miniature scale, brilliant blue beside gold, red and white becomes almost jewel-like.
What they teach us: a small area of excellent colour can command an entire page.Fra Angelico
c. 1395–1455 · FlorenceFra Angelico's work belongs to a culture in which fine ultramarine, luminous grounds and gold were central to prestigious sacred painting. What interests me is not simply that the blue was expensive, but the way his colour can feel light-bearing rather than heavy.
What he teaches us: luminosity depends on the whole paint structure, not the pigment jar alone.For our dedicated discussion of the name and shade, read What Is Fra Angelico Blue?
Giovanni Bellini
c. 1430–1516 · VeniceTechnical analysis of Bellini's The Virgin and Child at the National Gallery found high-quality lapis-derived ultramarine used liberally in the Virgin's mantle. The museum explicitly connects the costly material to the patron's wealth.
What he teaches us: the grade and quantity of a pigment could be part of the economics of a commission.Domenico Ghirlandaio
1449–1494 · FlorenceIn the National Gallery's Virgin and Child, the sky itself is painted with expensive lapis-derived ultramarine. This is a useful reminder that the pigment was not confined to one symbolic blue robe.
What he teaches us: ultramarine could create air and pictorial space as well as sacred symbolism.Raphael
1483–1520 · High RenaissanceNational Gallery cross-sections show a final glaze of expensive natural ultramarine over the Madonna's blue drapery. This is one of the clearest examples of a painter using the costly pigment as a calculated upper layer rather than simply building an entire form from it.
What he teaches us: layering can make a small quantity of exceptional pigment do important optical work.Michelangelo
1475–1564 · Florence & RomeMichelangelo should be discussed more carefully than the old article did. The former statement that he used lapis for “the robe of the Virgin Mary in The Last Judgment” should not be repeated. A stronger documented example is the unfinished Entombment, where the National Gallery notes that the unpainted Virgin would have required costly ultramarine, suggesting that the timing and supply of such a pigment could affect workshop decisions.
What he teaches us: sometimes the absence of an expensive material reveals how a workshop was planned.Titian
c. 1488/90–1576 · VeniceBacchus and Ariadne is one of the great demonstrations of ultramarine at scale. National Gallery research documents Titian's use of prized ultramarine and other blue pigments, while the painting's famous blue field shows how a costly pigment can organise an entire composition rather than merely decorate a detail.
What he teaches us: study the colours around blue, not only the blue itself.Sassoferrato
1609–1685 · ItalyIn The Virgin in Prayer, an intense ultramarine mantle is set against a highly restrained arrangement of dark background, white cloth, flesh and red. The pigment becomes powerful because very little competes with it.
What he teaches us: colour sometimes needs silence.Johannes Vermeer
1632–1675 · DelftVermeer is perhaps the most instructive later user. National Gallery research describes his unusual willingness to mix ultramarine into upholstery, shadows, flesh-related mixtures and architectural elements. Blue could influence the colour harmony of a room without announcing itself as a blue object.
What he teaches us: the most sophisticated use of blue may be the blue the viewer does not consciously notice.Many popular pigment articles attach lapis lazuli to famous painters without distinguishing natural ultramarine from azurite, smalt or later synthetic ultramarine. Where a specific work is named here, I prefer museum technical evidence or conservation research over repetition of an attractive story.
Artists Using Lapis Lazuli in the Modern and Contemporary Era
The invention of synthetic ultramarine in the nineteenth century changed everything. Artists could obtain a brilliant, consistent ultramarine colour without the expense of extracting it from stone. From that point onward, we must distinguish between painters who used ultramarine as a colour and artists who deliberately chose natural lapis lazuli pigment.
Hamra Abbas
Pakistani artist Hamra Abbas has worked directly with lapis lazuli as both stone and pigment. Her practice is especially relevant because the material is connected to geography, labour and the wider cultural world around the mountains from which lapis comes. In documented work around her Porters series, she prepared ultramarine from lapis through a historical extraction process.
Anita Chowdry
London-based artist and researcher Anita Chowdry works with historical painting materials and has demonstrated preparation of mineral pigments, including lapis lazuli, in the context of Indo-Persian and Mughal painting traditions. Her work is important because it keeps material knowledge connected to the artistic systems in which it historically functioned.
Sam Broadhurst
Australian artist Sam Broadhurst has documented processing lapis lazuli for use in landscape painting. This moves the pigment away from the idea that it belongs only to sacred art or historical reconstruction: natural ultramarine can describe water, sky, rock, atmosphere and contemporary landscape.
Why artists return to the stone
Today no painter needs natural lapis in order to obtain a strong blue. That makes its use more intentional. Contemporary artists may choose it for mineral variation, historical continuity, geography, process, or simply because the behaviour of the natural pigment suits the work they want to make.
I find this transition important. For an Old Master, natural ultramarine might have been the finest blue available. For an artist today it is one choice among hundreds. The material has moved from necessity to decision.
Particle Size, Transparency and the Optical Character of Natural Ultramarine
Artists often assume that finer pigment means better pigment. Natural mineral colours are more complicated.
Particle size and distribution can influence transparency, scattering, texture, saturation, granulation and handling. Historical ultramarine recipes themselves distinguish between fractions and recognize that excessive grinding can change the appearance of the blue. Modern technical studies of natural ultramarine likewise examine associated colourless minerals and particle characteristics when identifying and comparing grades.5
Light through the paint film
Natural ultramarine can be transparent to semi-transparent depending on grade, particle characteristics and binder. This is why a white or luminous ground can remain visually important through the finished blue.
Mineral particles remain visible
In water-based washes, natural particle variation can create settling and granular effects. This is not necessarily a defect; it is part of the material's physical character.
The same pigment changes with medium
Oil, gum arabic and egg yolk wet and surround the particles differently. Never judge a pigment only as dry powder.
There is a point to stop
Prepared lapis should be dispersed appropriately in the chosen binder rather than endlessly reground in pursuit of fineness alone.
Natural Ultramarine vs Synthetic Ultramarine
The invention of synthetic ultramarine in the late 1820s was a major achievement in colour manufacture. Synthetic ultramarine is not “fake lapis”; it is a valuable artist pigment with its own history.
But it is not the same material story. Natural ultramarine begins with geological lapis lazuli and carries associated mineral phases and natural particle variation. Synthetic ultramarine is manufactured for consistency. Their chemistry is related, but their origin, morphology, accessory material and historical significance differ.
For artists choosing between them, I would not reduce the question to “which is better?” Synthetic ultramarine offers extraordinary consistency and economy. Genuine lapis offers a mineral material with historical continuity and a different kind of optical and tactile character.
For a separate buying and comparison guide, see The Best Natural Ultramarine Pigment.
Material knowledge is best understood in the hand. A De Mairo workshop with Muhammad Irfan, where artists work through pigment, binder and paint-making techniques.
Painting With Lapis Lazuli: Watercolour, Egg Tempera, Gouache and Oil
Let the mineral remain visible
Gum arabic can reveal the transparent, granular side of lapis. I prefer to begin with modest binder, make a test wash, allow it to dry completely, then adjust. Wet colour is not the final colour.
Build luminosity with thin layers
Tempera rewards discipline. A light prepared ground and controlled layers can make natural ultramarine particularly luminous. Learn the binder first, then introduce the expensive pigment.
Opacity changes the conversation
In an opaque water-based system, lapis behaves differently from a transparent wash. The balance between pigment, gum arabic and any opacifying component needs to be tested rather than assumed.
Use layers intelligently
Oil wets the particles and can produce deep transparent passages. Historical painters often constructed blue through grounds, underlayers and final ultramarine applications rather than relying on one heavy coat.
A pigment only becomes fully understandable when it is placed in a binder and used. The dry powder, wet paint and dry paint film are three different visual experiences.
Is Natural Lapis Lazuli Pigment Permanent?
Natural ultramarine has an exceptional historical record and is generally regarded as a highly lightfast blue. Centuries-old paintings and manuscripts demonstrate its capacity to retain powerful colour under suitable conditions.
But I no longer describe any artist material with absolute phrases such as “it cannot fade or change.” Paint is a system. Pigment interacts with binder, ground, varnish, humidity, pollutants, previous restoration and environmental conditions.
Conservation literature documents alteration phenomena often grouped under the term ultramarine sickness, in which ultramarine-containing passages can appear greyed or whitish. Natural ultramarine is also vulnerable to sufficiently acidic environments. These issues are more complex than ordinary light fading and should not be confused with poor lightfastness.6
Properly prepared natural ultramarine has demonstrated excellent long-term stability in appropriate painting systems. That is a stronger and more useful statement than pretending any paint material is indestructible.
How We Work With Lapis at De Mairo Today
My relationship with lapis began long before De Mairo became a brand, but serious pigment work began for me in 2004. Years of trial taught me that extraction cannot be separated from observation. The slurry, settling, colour of each fraction and its behaviour in binder all tell you something.
Today De Mairo refines genuine Afghan lapis in small batches. I do not publish every workshop detail because some methods belong to our practical process, but the governing principles are not mysterious: careful raw-material selection, controlled reduction, washing, separation, evaluation of fractions and preparation to a particle character suitable for artists.
Watch Lapis Become Colour
See the material move from stone and pigment into the practical world of the artist. This studio film gives the article a visual pause after the technical discussion and before the pigment family.
Five Blues From One Lapis Lazuli Family
One of the most useful things an artist can learn from natural pigment is that “lapis blue” is not one absolutely fixed appearance. Raw-stone variation, separation, fraction and particle characteristics all affect what finally reaches the brush.
Fra Angelico Blue
A pale, luminous lapis grade within the De Mairo range. Use it where you want an airy mineral blue rather than maximum depth.
Explore Fra Angelico Pigment →Ultramarine Azure
A clearer, lighter natural ultramarine expression suited to delicate passages and transparent applications.
Explore Ultramarine Azure →Ultramarine Blue
The saturated natural-ultramarine centre of the family: rich, mineral and useful across oil, watercolour, tempera and gouache.
Explore Ultramarine Blue →Ultramarine Indigo
A deeper, less predictable expression that De Mairo describes as forming naturally during extraction rather than as a shade forced to a manufactured formula.
Explore Ultramarine Indigo →Ultramarine Ash
A softer grey-blue member of the lapis family, useful where atmosphere and mineral subtlety matter more than chromatic intensity.
Explore Ultramarine Ash →All Genuine Lapis Pigments
Compare the current De Mairo lapis range before choosing the particle character and shade that best suits your medium.
Explore the Pigment Collection →Experience Pigment as the Old Workshop Did
For most of art history, pigment and paint were separate things. Our Gemstone Watercolour Paint-Making Kit begins after the difficult extraction stage: the pigments are already refined, and the artist learns the relationship between pigment, binder, muller and finished paint.
Frequently Asked Questions About Lapis Lazuli Pigment
Is lapis lazuli pigment the same as natural ultramarine?
They are closely related but not identical terms. Lapis lazuli is the raw rock; natural ultramarine is the blue artist pigment traditionally refined from lapis lazuli.
What mineral makes lapis lazuli blue?
The principal blue phase is lazurite, a sodalite-group mineral. Its blue colour is associated with sulfur radical species held within the mineral's aluminosilicate framework.
Are the gold-coloured specks in lapis real gold?
Usually no. The metallic gold-looking inclusions commonly seen in lapis lazuli are pyrite, an iron sulfide mineral.
Can I grind a piece of lapis and use it as ultramarine?
You can make a blue-bearing powder, but it is not equivalent to a carefully refined natural ultramarine. Grinding the whole rock also distributes pale and accessory minerals throughout the pigment. Historical methods were developed to enrich the desirable blue fraction.
Should prepared De Mairo lapis pigment be ground again?
No aggressive regrinding is normally required. De Mairo pigments are supplied already refined for artists. When making paint, a muller is used to wet and disperse the pigment evenly through the binder.
Is natural ultramarine the same as synthetic ultramarine?
No. Synthetic ultramarine is a manufactured pigment developed in the nineteenth century. It is chemically related to the colour-bearing system of natural ultramarine but differs in geological origin, associated minerals, particle morphology and historical material context.
Is genuine lapis lazuli pigment lightfast?
Natural ultramarine has an excellent historical record for lightfastness. Conservation, however, considers the complete paint system and environment; acidic conditions and alteration phenomena such as ultramarine blanching or “ultramarine sickness” require more nuanced language than saying any pigment is absolutely indestructible.
Can lapis pigment be used in watercolour, gouache, egg tempera and oil?
Yes, when properly dispersed in an appropriate binder. Each medium changes the optical and handling behaviour of the pigment, so test ratios and application rather than assuming one formula suits every binder.
Why is genuine lapis pigment expensive?
Its cost reflects suitable raw stone, sorting, processing losses, labour-intensive separation and small-batch refinement. High-quality blue pigment represents only a selected portion of the original rock rather than the whole stone ground indiscriminately.
Books, Manuscripts and Technical References
Historical recipes are valuable, but old material names are not always equivalent to modern chemical identities. I therefore read workshop texts alongside conservation and analytical research.
- Joyce Plesters. “Ultramarine Blue, Natural and Artificial.” Studies in Conservation 11 (1966). A foundational technical study of natural and synthetic ultramarine.
- Cennino Cennini. Il Libro dell'Arte / The Craftsman's Handbook, especially Chapter LXII on ultramarine. One of the central early European workshop accounts of processing lapis into blue pigment.
- Mary Philadelphia Merrifield. Original Treatises, Dating from the XIIth to XVIIIth Centuries on the Arts of Painting (1849). A major collection and translation of historical recipes and workshop texts.
- Nasim Koohkesh. Recent conservation research on ultramarine/lājvard in Persian sources, comparing historical methods and terminology across numerous Persian and Islamic texts.
- Jill Dunkerton & Marika Spring, with contributors. “Titian's Painting Technique to c.1540.” National Gallery Technical Bulletin 34 (2013). Includes detailed discussion of Titian's pigments and natural ultramarine.
- National Gallery, London. Vermeer and Technique, including research on Vermeer's palette and ultramarine blanching.
- Ashok Roy, ed. Artists' Pigments: A Handbook of Their History and Characteristics, Vol. 2. National Gallery of Art. A standard conservation reference covering composition, history, permanence and identification of historical pigments.
- Nicholas Eastaugh, Valentine Walsh, Tracey Chaplin & Ruth Siddall. Pigment Compendium. A major reference for historical pigment terminology, identification and microscopy.
- National Gallery, London technical research. Published material on Duccio, Giovanni Bellini, Ghirlandaio, Raphael, Titian and Vermeer has been used for specific Old Master examples in this article.
- The Metropolitan Museum of Art. Conservation and curatorial publications on the Belles Heures, Persian manuscripts and the Shahnameh of Shah Tahmasp inform the manuscript sections.
Editorial method: Statements about mineral chemistry, conservation or a specific historical painting are separated from my own workshop observations. The first kind is based on published historical/technical sources; the second reflects practical experience working with lapis and paint materials.
A Colour Worth Understanding
Lapis lazuli began as geology before it became paint. It travelled as stone, entered workshops as a difficult raw material, became natural ultramarine through skilled separation, and then passed into manuscript pages, panel paintings, oil glazes and contemporary studios.
The original article ended by saying that lapis continues to captivate artists and collectors. I still agree with that. But after another few years at the bench, I would put it differently.
The reason lapis survives is not simply that it is rare or historically expensive. It survives because it still has something to teach the artist about material.
Make a wash. Watch where the particles settle. Compare a transparent layer with an opaque one. Put the blue beside gold, earth red, flesh colour or a quiet neutral. Use it once as an obvious blue and once where the viewer will never consciously call the passage blue.
That is how a historical pigment stops being a museum story and becomes an artist's material again.
— Muhammad Irfan
Hand-refined from authentic Afghan lapis lazuli. Pure pigment ready for oil, watercolor, or tempera.
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