Burnt Sienna

Description

Burnt Sienna is a handmade single earth pigment made through a historical process of calcination of our French Raw Sienna. By heating natural raw sienna, its yellow-brown tone transforms into a deeper, reddish-brown, intensifying its warmth and saturation. This pigment is known for its rich, earthy character and exceptional versatility in fine art.

Burnt Sienna has exceptional lightfastness, making it highly durable for both classical and contemporary artwork. It blends seamlessly with other earth pigments, offering warm and harmonious tones in painting. Its semi-opaque quality allows for beautiful layering and depth in oil, watercolor, and tempera applications. Compared to synthetic reds and browns, it provides a more soft and natural color, ideal for landscape, portrait, and decorative painting.

History

Sienna pigments have been used in painting since prehistoric times, with early cave paintings featuring iron-rich earth pigments. Sourced originally from Italy, sienna deposits have also been found in France, Cyprus, and other regions known for their high-quality earth pigments.

During antiquity, Burnt Sienna was widely used in Egyptian, Greek, and Roman wall paintings, frescoes, and ceramics. Artists discovered that heating sienna altered its color, creating a richer, more intense pigment suited for shading and warm highlights.

In the Renaissance, artists such as Leonardo da Vinci, Titian, and Rembrandt extensively used Burnt Sienna in underpainting and glazing techniques. Its warm, reddish tone made it an essential pigment for depicting skin tones, rich drapery, and dynamic lighting effects.

By the 18th and 19th centuries, sienna sourced from France gained popularity as a stable and widely available pigment. Burnt Sienna became a staple in academic painting, used for sketching, glazing, and neutralizing blues in color mixing. In the pictured artwork ' A Sunday on La Grande Jatte' by Georges Seurat, burnt sienna is used subtly to create warmth and depth throughout the skin tones, clothing, and foliage of the background.  

Today, Burnt Sienna remains one of the most widely used earth pigments in fine art, conservation, and restoration due to its historical authenticity and warm, natural tone.

Health and Safety

Precautions:  
Keep out of reach of children and pets.  
Do not consume.  
Not for cosmetic or food usage.  
Do not spray apply.  
For further health information contact a poison control center.  
Use care when handling dry pigments and avoid dust formation.  
Use particular caution with fibrous, fine, or toxic pigments.  
Do not eat, drink, or smoke near dry pigments.  
Avoid breathing in pigment dust and use a NIOSH-certified dust respirator with sufficient rating for dry pigment.  
Wash hands immediately after use or handling.  
If dust is likely, always wear protective clothing to keep out of eyes, lungs, off skin, and out of any contact as well as keep area ventilated.  
This product may contain chemicals known by the State of California to cause cancer, birth defects, or reproductive harm.  
Warnings and bottle information are abbreviated.

Pigment Information

Pigment Type: Natural (Iron Oxide) from minerals (Goethite and Hematite, heat-treated) (France)  
Suitable Mediums: Watercolor, Oil, Tempera, Acrylic  
Lightfastness: Best  
Opacity: Semi-opaque  
Other Names: Terre de Sienne Brûlée, French Burnt Sienna, Warm Earth Red , Burnt earth, Calcined Sienna 
Color Index Code: PBr7
Image: 'A Sunday on La Grande Jatte' by Georges Seurat from the Art Institute Chicago