Naples yellow

noun

1. a poisonous pigment used in painting and enameling, consisting chiefly of lead antimoniate and characterized by its fugitive yellow color, rapid drying rate, and strong film-forming properties.

Naples yellow

noun

1. a yellow pigment, used by artists; lead antimonate
2. a similar pigment consisting of a mixture of zinc oxide with yellow colouring matter
3. the colour of either of these pigments

Word History and Origins

Origin of Naples yellow¹

1730–40; so called because originally manufactured in Naples, Italy

Example Sentences

Using chromatic research by the curators of the Centre Pompidou’s 2005 Mallet-Stevens retrospective, Touchaleaume restored the walls to their original colors, from buttery Naples yellow in the living room to chalky shades of blue and gray in the tiny kitchen, which retains its original layout and fixtures, including a clever pullout counter-shelf.

From New York Times

In the early eighteenth century, antimony, combined with lead, known as Naples Yellow, became the most popular version of the hue.

From The New Yorker

The ring, tiny, is depicted with a brush stroke of Naples yellow.

From Washington Times

Some of the oaks were still green; a birch displayed the purest Naples yellow; low-growing mountain ashes and alders had kept their summer clothing intact, and the thick undergrowth of briar and bramble was verdant as ever.

From Project Gutenberg

The silhouette of a sniffing lion, with one unwinking yellow eye and a tail stiffly outstretched, its tip erect as though charged with static electricity, quivering like Rousseau's own paintbrush; the swollen, white Melies moon; the black nomad like a toppled statue, her feet with their pink toenails gravely sticking up; the djellaba, with its rippling stripes of coral, Naples yellow, cerulean; and the lute, like a pale lunar egg, hanging on the brown sand as the moon hangs in the blue night.

From Time Magazine Archive