Photograph 3-14， combination of orpiment and realgar specimen from the Shimen Realgar Mine, Hunan, China.

Orpiment, cihuang, 雌黄

The Matter of Chinese Painting, Case studies of 8th century murals

Author: Lucien van Valen, chapter 3, page 80:

Orpiment has been microscopically identified in two paintings in the Freer Gallery of Art by the FGA: acc no 35.11 and the scroll painting of Guanyin of the Water moon, China, Gansu province, Dunhuang. Northern Song Dynasty, 968.
The painting is registered as Song Dynastic Painting, dated 968, acc no 30.36; Avalokitesvara with two attendant divinities; the family of the donor, including four persons, below. The yellow colour on the large vase in the centre of the painting is orpiment.

The mineral forms of realgar and of orpiment are distinct, but still the Chinese sources do not always clearly differentiate between realgar and orpiment. Orpiment is a transparent amorphous mineral, citrus- yellow or brownish-yellow in colour. Realgar is a bright red crystalline mineral. It transforms into an orange-yellow powder when ground. In Europe, its most common use was in Tempera painting. Tempera is a painting technique that uses water-soluble binders like animal glues, egg white, egg yoke or casein. Orpiment and realgar are still used in watercolours today. Ochres are also used in a yellow variety, mostly named after the place where they are found. [LVV, p 24]

Photograph 3-12, left: Guanyin of the Autumn Moon; Northern Song dynasty 968; Hanging scroll (mounted on panel); ink and colour on silk; 107.1x 59.1 cm.; Acc. No. F 30.36, Freer Gallery of Art

Photograph 3-13 right: Ksitigarbha and attendants in a landscape; Song dynasty (960-1279CE); ink and colour on silk;106.4x58.2 cm.; This painting on silk said to have been found at Dunhuang; Acc. No. F 35.11, Freer Gallery of Art.

According to Yu Fei’an realgar, orpiment and yellow ochre are all parts of one substance and they are mined together:

’This is sulphur arsenic and very harmful for ones health. Mineral yellow is yellow in colour, and realgar is orange; orpiment is gold yellow, and ochre is earth yellow. It is primarily found in Gangsu, but the biggest realgar mines on earth are in Hunan. None of these four yellows can be used together with lead. [Yu 1, p 3]

Mineral yellow
Mineral yellow is also called gold yellow: the outer layer is porous, dark in colour and it smells awful, while the inner layer is the proper mineral yellow. [Yu 1, p 3]

Realgar
Orange is found inside the mineral yellow, and is covered by it. It is also found in lumps without an outer layer. There is also a variety that is shiny and of a deeper color: this is called the 'spirit of realgar'. [Yu 1, p 3]

Orpiment
Orpiment, female yellow is found in mineral yellow. Its parts are small, like mica, it falls apart easily, as a Chinese proverb states: 'One ounce of orpiment gives off a thousand gold flakes.' [Yu 1, p 3]

Yellow ochre
Yellow ochre covers the outside of mineral-yellow, and smells the worst. In fact, the three mentioned above all smell a little. The primary components are iron oxide and iron hydroxide. It is also used for ceramics.‘[Yu 1, p 4]

Shen Gua uses orpiment to correct mistakes in books [Shen Gua, scroll 1, section 18, p 26]:

‘Cihuang, 雌黄 [female yellow]

If there are mistakes in the new books of the public office, one uses orpiment to correct them. I have compared this with other methods of changing the character: scrapping and washing damages the paper; gluing onto the paper quickly becomes loose; spreading powder does not remove the character, as after repeated spreading it is still there. Only orpiment is capable of removing it at once, and it does not come loose again. It use to be called qianhuang，钱黄 lead yellow, this is used most often.’

The use of orpiment as a pest controller is recorded much earlier in the farmers handbook (Qimin yaoshu) [Jia Sixie 1, p 227]:

‘The way to treat texts with orpiment:
Rub the orpiment on a gray hard stone till it is ripe; let it dry in the sun; rub it again in a porcelain bowl till it is even riper; dry in the sun; and rub once more in the porcelain bowl. Now melt clear glue and put it in a mortar with an iron pestle, and pound it till it is ripe. Form pills like ink pills; dry in the shade. Take water and rub it to treat the text, then it will never deteriorate. If you use it directly from the bowl, no matter how much glue is used it will still deteriorate. For all texts that are mended with orpiment, the yellow remains beautiful after treatment; while the former yellows shed their colour.‘

In the farmers handbook (Qimin yaoshu) [Jia Sixie 1, p 226], a description of the process of dyeing yellow paper with huangbo precedes the section translated above. The ‘former yellow’ mentioned here relates to the use of huangbo, which is obviously seen as an inferior method of pest protection for texts, in view of its bleeding of colour (see also the entry on dihuang).

Synonyms specified in the Materia Medica once again point out that in China realgar and orpiment both are mineral yellow. [Read and Pak, section IV, 2, p 32]:

Realgar, Xionghuang, 雄黄[male yellow]

Huangjinshi, 黄金石[yellow gold mineral]

Shihuang, 石黄 [mineral yellow]

Chouhuang, 臭黄[foul yellow, stinking yellow]

Xunhuang, 熏黄[smoke yellow]

Mingxiong, 明雄 [clear realgar]

Tuxiong, 土雄 [earth realgar]

Piliugong, 鐾流汞 [sharp mercury]

Guihuang, 瑰黄  [jade yellow]

Shenhua’erliu, 神化二流 [divine second class]

Xiongjing, 雄精 [male spirit]

Shenliu’erhuang, 神化二黄[divine second grade yellow]

Modern term:

Jiguanshi,  鸡冠石 [cocks comb mineral]

Orpiment, 雌黄 cihuang, [female yellow]

Shihuang, 石黄 [mineral yellow]

In some cases the synonyms relate to the physical appearance of the mineral. The term ‘cock comb mineral’ is easely understood looking at photograph 3-11 with a red mineral form of realgar against a white calcite matrix.

Photograph 3-11 Realgar specimen from the Shimen mine, Hunan, China.