Verdigris

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Verdigris

Verdigris is the common name for the green

Green

Green is a color, the perception of which is evoked by light having a spectrum dominated by energy with a wavelength of roughly 520?570-Nanometre....
coating or patina

Patina

Patina is a film on the surface of bronze or similar metals ; a sheen on wooden furniture produced by age, wear, and polishing; or any such acquired change of a surface through age and exposure....
formed when copper

Copper

Copper is a chemical element with the symbol Cu and atomic number 29.It is a ductile metal with very high thermal and electrical conductivity....
, brass

Brass

Brass is any alloy of copper and zinc; the proportions of zinc and copper can be varied to create a range of brasses with varying properties. In comparison, bronze is principally an alloy of copper and tin....
or bronze

Bronze

Bronze is a metal alloy consisting primarily of copper, usually with tin as the main additive, but sometimes with other chemical element such as phosphorus, manganese, aluminium, or silicon....
is weathered and exposed to air or seawater over a period of time. It is usually a basic copper carbonate, but near the sea will be a basic copper chloride

Copper chloride

Copper forms two stable chlorides:*Copper chloride , CuCl, mineral name nantokite.*Copper chloride , CuCl2, mineral name eriochalcite....
. If acetic acid

Acetic acid

Acetic acid, CH3COOH, also known as ethanoic acid, is an organic acid which gives vinegar its sour taste and pungent smell. Pure, water-free acetic acid is a colourless liquid that absorbs water from the environment , and freezes at 16.7 Celsius to a colourless crystalline solid....
is present at the time of weathering, it may consist of copper(II) acetate

Copper(II) acetate

Copper acetate, also referred to as cupric acetate, is the chemical compound with the chemical formula Copper2 where AcO- is acetate ....
. Its name comes from the Middle English

Middle English

Middle English is the name given by historical linguistics to the diverse forms of the English language spoken between the Norman conquest of England of 1066 and about 1470, when the #Chancery Standard, a form of London-based English, began to become widespread, a process aided by the introduction of the printing press into England by William...
vertegrez, from the Old French

Old French

Old French was the Romance languages dialect continuum spoken in territories which span roughly the northern half of modern France and parts of modern Belgium and Switzerland from around 1000 to 1300....
verte grez, an alteration of vert-de-Grèce ("green of Greece

Greece

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Encyclopedia

Verdigris is the common name for the green

Green

Green is a color, the perception of which is evoked by light having a spectrum dominated by energy with a wavelength of roughly 520?570-Nanometre....
coating or patina

Patina

Copper

Copper is a chemical element with the symbol Cu and atomic number 29.It is a ductile metal with very high thermal and electrical conductivity....
, brass

Brass

Bronze

Copper chloride

Copper forms two stable chlorides:*Copper chloride , CuCl, mineral name nantokite.*Copper chloride , CuCl2, mineral name eriochalcite....
. If acetic acid

Acetic acid

Copper(II) acetate

Copper acetate, also referred to as cupric acetate, is the chemical compound with the chemical formula Copper2 where AcO- is acetate ....
. Its name comes from the Middle English

Middle English

Old French

Greece

Greece , officially the Hellenic Republic , is a country in southeastern Europe, situated on the southern end of the Balkans. It has borders with Albania, Bulgaria and the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia to the north, and Turkey to the east....
"). The modern French spelling of this word is vert-de-gris.

The vivid green color of copper(II) acetate makes this form of verdigris a very common pigment

Pigment

A pigment is a material that changes the color of light it Reflection as the result of selective color absorption. This physical process differs from fluorescence, phosphorescence, and other forms of luminescence, in which the material itself emits light....
available and frequently used in painting. Verdigris is lightfast in oil paint, as numerous examples of 15th century paintings show. However, its lightfastness and air resistance is very low in other media. Copper resinate, made from verdigris, isn't lightfast, even in oil paint. In the presence of light and air, green copper resinate becomes stable brown copper oxide. This degradation is to blame for the brown or bronze color of grass or foliage in many old paintings, although not typically those of the "Flemish primitive" painters such as Jan van Eyck

Jan van Eyck

Jan van Eyck or Johannes de Eyck was an Early Netherlandish painting active in Bruges and considered one of the best Northern European painters of the 15th century....
, who often used normal verdigris. In addition, verdigris is a fickle pigment requiring special preparation of paint, careful layered application and immediate sealing with varnish to avoid rapid discoloration (but not in the case of oil paint). Verdigris has the curious property in oil painting that it is initially bluish-green, but turns a rich foliage green over the course of about a month. This green is stable. Verdigris fell out of use by artists as more stable green pigments became available.

Verdigris has also been used in medicine and as a fungicide

Fungicide

Fungicides are chemical compounds or biological organisms used to kill or inhibit fungus or fungal spores. Fungi can cause serious damage in agriculture, resulting in critical losses of Crop yield, quality and profit....
.

Copper(II) acetate is soluble in alcohol and water and slightly soluble in ether and glycerol. It melts at 115 °C and decomposes at 240 °C. It can be prepared by reacting copper(II) oxide

Copper(II) oxide

Copper oxide or cupric oxide is the higher oxide of copper. As a mineral, it is known as tenorite....
, Cu

Copper

Copper is a chemical element with the symbol Cu and atomic number 29.It is a ductile metal with very high thermal and electrical conductivity....
O

Oxygen

Oxygen no O2 produced; 2) O2 produced, but absorbed in oceans & seabed rock; 3) O2 starts to gas out of the oceans, but is absorbed by land surfaces and formation of ozone layer; 4-5) O2 sinks filled and the gas accumulates]]...
, or copper(II) carbonate, Cu

Copper

Copper is a chemical element with the symbol Cu and atomic number 29.It is a ductile metal with very high thermal and electrical conductivity....
CO₃

Carbonate

In chemistry, a carbonate is a salt or ester of carbonic acid....
, with acetic acid

Acetic acid

Acetate

An acetate, or ethanoate, is either a salt or ester of acetic acid.In chemistry, the abbreviation Ac refers to the acetyl group. The anion and the functional group may be written as -OAc and AcO-, or OAc respectively....
H

Hydrogen

Hydrogen is the chemical element with atomic number 1. It is represented by the chemical symbol H. At standard temperature and pressure, hydrogen is a colorless, odorless, nonmetallic, tasteless, highly combustion and explosive Diatomic molecule gas with the molecular formula H2....
. It is used industrially as a fungicide, a catalyst for organic reactions, and in dyeing (The Merck Index , Ninth Ed., 1976).

Verdigris

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