Sinopia

Sinopia
Color coordinates
Hex triplet	#CB410B
sRGBB  (r, g, b)	(203, 65, 11)
CMYKH   (c, m, y, k)	(0, 68, 95, 20)
HSV       (h, s, v)	(17°, 95%, 80%)
Source	[1]
B: Normalized to [0–255] (byte) H: Normalized to [0–100] (hundred)

Sinopia (also known as sinoper, named after the Turkish city Sinop) is a dark reddish-brown natural earth pigment, whose reddish color comes from hematite, a dehydrated form of iron oxide. It was widely used in classical antiquity and the Middle Ages for painting, and during the Renaissance it was often used for the cartoon or preparatory drawing for a fresco. The word came to be used both for the pigment and for the preparatory drawing itself. During the Middle Ages synopia in Latin and Italian came to mean simply a red ochre. It entered the English language as the word sinoper, meaning a red earth color.

From Ancient times through the Renaissance, the pigment was mined in Cappadocia, and exported to Europe through the port of Sinop, a Greek colony on the Black Sea. The pigment was valued for its quality and the genuine product was marked with a seal to show its authenticity.

In the Renaissance "sinopia" or "sinoper" meant any of a range of different shades and hues, and the color had a variety of names; it was sometimes called Venetian red, or Terra di Siena (Sienna earth), or Ocra rosso (red ochre). The color shown in the box above is one more recent commercial variety of the color.

The Italian painter and writer Cennino Cennini (c. 1370- c. 1440) described sinopia in his handbook on painting, "Il libro dell'arte", this way: "A natural pigment called sinoper, cinabrese or porphyry is red. This pigment has a lean and dry character. It responds well to mulling, as the more it is mulled the finer it becomes. It is good for working on panel or on anconas [a type of panel divided into smaller framed compartments], or walls, in fresco and in secco."

Cennino Cennini described a light red color he called cinabrese, which was apparently a mixture of a light shade of sinopia and lime white; "And I do not know", Cennini wrote, "that they use this pigment outside Florence. And it is absolutely perfect for doing flesh or for making flesh colours for figures on walls. And work in fresco with it. This pigment is made from the loveliest and lightest sinopia that is found and is mixed and mulled with St. John's white, as it is called in Florence; and this white is made from thoroughly white and thoroughly purified lime...this pigment does you great credit if you use it for painting faces, hands and nudes on walls..."

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Wikipedia