Rediscovering the colours of Elias Brenner’s pigment nomenclature from 1680

Abstract When studying pigment terminology in historical treatises on painting, it is often difficult to find physical materials that allow for reliable cross-referencing and verification. In 1680, Swedish artist and scholar Elias Brenner (1647–1717) published Nomeclatura et species Colorum Miniatae Picturae, Thet är: Förteckning och Proff på Miniatur Färgår , the earliest known document to list pigment names together with painted colour samples for reference. By combining nomenclature in French, Latin, and Swedish with actual pigment samples, this work provides a rare and valuable opportunity to validate historical terminology through direct pigment identification. Using non-invasive methods and portable instruments such as XRF, Raman spectroscopy, FORS, and FTIR, the study establishes for the first time a direct correlation between historical pigment names and their physical counterparts, offering unique insights into 17th-century Swedish pigment use and contributing significantly to the broader field of historical pigment research.