Medieval Watercolor palette

Here's my palette and breakdown of each section based on material-- I've been focused on collecting so much I haven't painted much with it yet, but I'll be getting around to that soon!

I'm a big fan of medieval manuscripts, I think they're beautiful-- and so this is my attempt at recreating something useable for watercolor using the same pigments they would have used! (minus some of the leads haha)

Disclaimer?

This palette's constructed to the best of my ability as a hobbyist watercolor pigment nerd with an interest in the medieval period and those 2 things overlap to make this.
Whether this is striving to be an accurate Medieval Manuscript palette or a just one that could have hypothetically existed, I haven't decided. There's a dedicated section at the bottom for a couple of pigments that are a bit of a stretch at the bottom. (I might change things up if I ever make up my mind!)

Substitutes are mentioned for pigments that are difficult to get ahold of (not offered by any major paint brand)

Watercolor Palette (Hover for brand names/ pigment numbers!):

Currently there's a hole in the palette for a green I'm hoping to get my hands on, I'll fill it in once I own it!

NR24

NR24

NR9

NR31

NR8

NY14

Luteolin

Luteolin

NY2

NG2

NB1

NB1

NR4:1

NR4

NR4

PB31

PB32

PB32

PR101

PBr7

PY43

PG23

Vivianite

Walnut

PBk7

PW6

PO20

PY53

PB30

PG39

Chrysocolla

PW4 PG7 PB15:3 PY3

PR108

PY159

PB29

PB29

Mica

Mica

Sources

I have a few different places I've gathered this information from, some places include:

A modern translation of the well-known Cennino Cennini's Il Libro Dell'arte by Lara Broecke.
The Medieval palette-- a webpage covering a lot of medieval manuscript colors.
"An Overview of Medieval Pigments" a presentation by Marion's Medieval Musings.
A wonderful collection of scans of medieval illuminations, with a great lab section.
"Shining light on medieval illuminations: pigments through the ages" a talk by Andrew Beeby, a Professor of Chemistry at Durham University.
One of a few sources on the use of egyptian blue in medieval manuscripts.

Watercolor pigments by group:

Black

Just a singular pigment in this group! (Though it could have been multiple, but it was a matter of practicality and space.)
My pick goes to Lamp black PBk7 as it shows up most commonly in manuscripts, but Charcoal or a Vine black PBk8'd do just fine. Ivory black PBk9 also works but was more of a thing little later in the period.

Lead Family

A group entirely for Lead dupes as I'm not interested in poisoning myself with the real stuff. Opacity is the biggest unifying feature of this family-- and so opacity is what I prioritized!

Titanium White PW6 (while a little too cool) is opaque, which makes it the best dupe for Lead white.
Titanium Yellow PY53 for Lead Tin Yellow PY46
Cadmium Orange PO20 for Minium/ Red Lead, choosing a reddish variant for my palette as to my eyes that's what looks closest.

Copper Family

While I have the genuine pigment for most of these, the more sensible option is probably buying hues. A.Gallo has a lot of good dupes for this family--probably the closest I've seen.
The real pigments are sensitive to acids and can change color/yellow over time, but I'm curious to see by how much, so I have the real things included in my palette (for now, at least.)

A Gallo's Copper Hue for Verdigris PG20 as that pigment's a little too sensitive even for me.
Their Malachite Hue is a perfect color match for the Malachite I have, but it's missing the granulation-- For that, Cobalt Green PG19 is a close runner-up for dupes.
Chrysocolla is a copper silicate pigment often found alongside azurite and malachite and often gets confused with genuine malachite--Maybe a questionable inclusion, but in medieval times apparently malachite was a word used for both substances. (I can see why, it's extremely similar, aside from chrysocolla being slightly bluer, but only slightly).
A.gallo's Azurite hue isn't bad, but it like the malachite hue has no granulation, unlike the real stuff. The Azurite I have looks more like a granulating prussian blue.
Egyptian Blue PB31 is an incredibly old pigment (dating back over 5000 years) and saw a decline in the early middle ages (And thought to be lost for a time until it was "rediscovered" in the early 1800s), but it's use stretches on longer than a lot of people think. It has been found in English manuscripts in quite a few places, So while a rarity, any proof of it's use is good enough for me.

Sulfide Family

The sulphur family makes a nice little RYB group!
Cinnibar/Vermillion PR106, Orpiment (arsenic sulphide) PY39 and Ultramarine/ Lapis Lazuli PB29.

Synthetic Lazurite, PB29 Ultramarine is a very common pigment! I have that on my palette (As a substitute for genuine high grade lapis pigment) as well as some Lapis ash (lesser quality lazurite pigment) as grades of this paint were used. It was too precious to waste!
After a trip to the more volcanic part of my country and getting to see the relevant sulphur compounds in person (from a safe distance) no one can convince me that Schminkeminke's Volcano red/yellow (A dark granulating PR108 and PY159) aren't perfect dupes for (if not directly inspired by) Orpiment and Vermillion.

Plant Based

By far the largest group on the palette, Are paints made form plant material, often lake pigments. Because it's so large, I've split it into color sections below!

Reds and pinks

The variant of Brazilwood NR24 I have is a very pretty red-magenta, quite close to PV32 or a PV19 purple shade. Super sensitive to acid, so if you splash lemon juice on it, it turns orange.
Dragon's blood NR31 Cennio Cenninni complained about this one and I kinda see why. Very gritty, but the texture can be nice in mixes.
Rose Madder NR9 is a nice pink made from Crushed up roses. Smells like it too! I like this one a lot.
Madder lake PR83, maybe more commonly known as Genuine Alizarin Crimson-- The synthetic version's still sold today!

The Luteolin Brothers (Yellows) and Sap green

Luteolin is a flavinoid that produces a yellow found in a lot of different plants, some of which being weld, dandelion and gorse, three of the pigments I have on my palette. Also my category for "Yellow Lake", Cennio Cenninni calls "arzica", and while it's commonly attributed to weld, there's a good chance it was not solely weld that was used around that time. (and so I have variants, a few of which I made myself!)

Sap green/chlorophyll NG2: Sap green is commonly attributed to the sap of ripe buckthorn berries and while that is correct, it's chlorophyll giving the green tint.

Indigo/Woad NB1 (Blue)

2 pans of the same pigment, one I purchased from A.Gallo (A moody dark shade) and a quarter pan I received as an additional order bonus from texas wild color (A little bluer).
A very pretty color! Downside is that due to the fermentation required in processing it can smell like cat pee.
It was super strong when I first got the pan from A.gallo-- with a bit of use it's calmed down, but opening the palette after a long break sometimes catches me off guard.
However, it is a pretty color and I like the texture the organic matter produces, and my actual paintings don't smell, so I use it for personal works. (Like this Xael painting.)

Crushed up bugs

Cocheniel NR4 makes up the more magenta portion of this palette, originally variants from the mediterranean and later a more pigmented variant from the new world.

For the red ver I have Schminke's which might be a little too finely milled-- Looks almost identical to PV19 (but only at ~90% PV19 saturation)
Cocheniel can also produce purple variants with the inclusion of iron-- I have 2, both from Lutea, that are sort of like duller version of PV19 purple shade.

Earth

My selection of earths are a little underwhelming, you could very much expand this section out to include more. I do think I have the main ones down, though. Not sure if I'll miss having a burnt umber.

Caput mortem PR101 Currently the only opaque red earth I have in my collection, though still a synthetic red. Ideally this would be a PR102 instead.
Della magna Orange Ochre Sardinia PBr7 was a lovely gift inclusion after one of my purchases from them-- it's lovely!
Yellow Ochre PY43, I made this variant myself! The synthetic version PY42 is pretty common, and could be used instead if you don't feel like crushing up rocks.
Green Earth PG23 -- Genuine on this palette, Maybe the only paint I would consider the dupe a superior choice to. Schminke's terre verte's the exact same hue without any of the streakiness. Cennini mentions this as a good pigment to stick gold leaf to, but considering how little I'm doing of that, I just find it's texture difficult to work with.

Smalt

I have Smalt PB32 in 2 beautiful versions from Prodigal Sons Pigments, a 400s version that's approaches a usable pigment and 200s which is suuper coarse.
I'd recommend a granulating cobalt PB74 for this one as it's the closest thing, otherwise this one could be skipped as it's not a common pigment in manuscripts. however, it's been identified in them all the same, so I'm happy to include it.

Metals

I'm not fancy enough to afford genuine Gold and Silver paints, so regular metallic imitations do me just fine.

Things that shouldn't technically in this but it's my palette my rules

This section could (and maybe should) be cut entirely if you're looking for a more accurate palette. But I have these pigments and there's space in the palette for them.

Vivianite Genuine: Used since antiquity. No mentions of it in medieval manuscripts that I could find, but a known material at the time, which is good enough for me. In goes the bog blue.
Walnut: A common dye product of the time. used as an ink, but not as a pigment. However, since I only have the pigment version, that's what I'm including.

Missing square in the palette

I'd love to get my hands on some Buckthorn berry green by A.Gallo (Though I currently have a sap green/chlorophyll NG2 substitute so it's not a /need/.) I might yet get ahold of the pigment directly and make it myself, since A.Gallo seems to have retired it as a paint.

(Link back up top)